It's Thursday! One more day until the long weekend. You got this.

• Today's weather: ☀️ Sunny, with highs in the low-40s.

Situational awareness: Single-film tickets for the Sundance Film Festival go on sale today at 10am.

Today's newsletter is 935 words — a 3.5-minute read.

Utah TikTokers are joining the mass migration to RedNote, the Chinese app that has drawn hundreds of thousands of U.S. content creators.

Why it matters: Utah's social media influencer scene is famously outsized, so the pending ban of TikTok would leave a lot of prominent content creators here in a lurch.

The big picture: RedNote — a platform whose interface is similar to TikTok's — shot to the top of U.S. app charts as the nation waited for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on a ban that would shut down the app as soon as Sunday.

• During oral arguments last week, the justices seemed inclined to uphold the ban, sending TikTok creators in search of alternatives.

Zoom in: Utah TikTokers have been popping up on RedNote with snowsports videos, footage of the state's landscapes and views, pet photos (a beloved bonding practice on the app), art and music samples, wisecracks about their "assigned spies," cultural exchange overtures — and promises to learn Chinese.

What they're saying: "I'm learning Mandarin and planning a vacay with my new besties," Cierra Nebeker posted on TikTok Tuesday.

How it works: If you download the app, you can find a lot of local creators by searching "Utah," "Salt Lake City" or their Chinese translations: 犹他州 ("Youta zhou," or "Utah state"), and 盐湖城 ("Yen Hu Cheng," literally, "Salt Lake City").

• Newcomers frequently use the hashtag #TikTokrefugee.

Caveat: RedNote — whose Chinese name means "Little Red Book," a la Mao Zedong — likely faces the same legal difficulties that have plagued TikTok, Forbes reports.

• It also doesn't share TikTok's algorithm, which was central to its massive popularity.

Yes, but: Many TikTokers in Utah and elsewhere say they moved to RedNote precisely because its Chinese ownership makes it a middle finger to the U.S. government.

Share this story