New York
CNN
—
In the times right after TikTok’s CEO was grilled by Congress for the to start with time, many TikTok buyers started publishing about an different system known as Lemon8, at times with eerily equivalent language.
Numerous creators described the application as being like “if Pinterest and Instagram had a toddler, with TikTok’s algorithm.” Some when compared it to TikTok circa 2020 and inspired other influencers to join the app in advance of it grows. They also asked followers to share their Lemon8 usernames in the remarks.
As it turned out, the app was not just a random choice to TikTok. Lemon8 is a social media platform introduced in the United States previously this yr by TikTok’s Chinese parent firm ByteDance amid federal and point out efforts to ban or prohibit TikTok in the state over countrywide protection fears.
The similarities in the video clips evaluating the new support to Instagram and Pinterest, which were being posted by the two English and Spanish-speaking creators, elevated concerns about irrespective of whether individuals had been staying compensated to boost the new app on TikTok. But regardless of that speculation — and the mounting scrutiny on TikTok and ByteDance — a growing quantity of US end users and influencers are now eagerly touting Lemon8, with its emphasis on images and remarkably curated, informational or “aspirational” content.
“We have to talk about TikTok’s new sister application,” a creator reported in just one these types of video clip.
“I’ve seen a whole lot of larger content material creators that I enjoy on it and endorsing it on their Instagram tales, so I thought, ‘okay, it is my time to hop on this bandwagon,’” explained Melanie Cruz, who got her get started building information as a YouTube vlogger in large college all over 2018. “I like that it’s some thing uncomplicated, it’s nothing at all much too in your facial area … it is not too much to handle.”
Lemon8 has been downloaded just in excess of just one million times in the United States since it grew to become offered on US application shops in February, and had all around 50 % a million everyday energetic US users final month, in accordance to intelligence platform Apptopia.
The early traction for Lemon8 hints at the whack-a-mole obstacle lawmakers could deal with in reining in TikTok and other social media platforms. It also carries some hints of TikTok’s possess rise, which was reportedly fueled in section by ByteDance expending closely to market the company on rival platforms Fb and Snapchat. This time, however, the finest place to advertise the next TikTok might be on TikTok itself.
The New York Occasions described previous thirty day period that ByteDance had begun early advertising endeavours for Lemon8 that involved working with influencers. Now, some creators highlighted on Lemon8’s “for you” feed show up to be disclosing their function with the organization utilizing the hashtag #Lemon8Husband or wife in their captions.
A ByteDance enterprise resource mentioned that Lemon8 is nevertheless in its early days and tests how to get the job done with creators. They mentioned ByteDance has not introduced any formal advertising endeavours for Lemon8, but in some scenarios has built offers to fork out creators to publish on the platform. On the other hand, they denied rumors that ByteDance experienced paid out creators to promote the new application on TikTok.
ByteDance has also lately mentioned open employment for Lemon8 creator partnerships roles, according to postings viewed by CNN. “Lemon8 is a social media system dedicated to developing a various and inclusive community wherever people today can explore new written content and creators every day,” the work postings browse.
Lemon8’s image-significant focus marks a stark shift away from most of the main social applications that, pursuing TikTok’s direct, have absent all-in on endlessly scrollable shorter-type videos in current a long time.
Lemon8’s homepage is a “for you” feed where by consumers can scroll through material, similar to TikTok, but in its place of movies, the feed is two columns of still images. When you click by way of to a write-up, it might be a solitary photograph or a carousel of illustrations or photos. It’s also feasible to put up movies on the application, but they are less well-liked.
The app is closely centered on magnificence and way of living written content — the “for you” webpage can be sorted into six groups like vogue, residence and vacation. Lots of of the posts attribute prolonged captions, and end users can also edit illustrations or photos to incorporate text overlays. On prime of similarities to Instagram and Pinterest, Lemon8 looks almost identical to the Chinese application Xiaohongshu.
However, the app lacks some typical social platform functions this sort of as messaging and the choice to tag other customers in posts.
A latest scroll by means of Lemon8’s “for you” site showed prior to-and-following photos of a botox cure, a “no restrictions” day-lengthy ingesting strategy, book recommendations, black tie wedding day apparel suggestions and “10 recent girly Amazon buys I do NOT regret.”
“It looks like persons like it or hate it,” Madison Bravenec, a health and fitness mentor and articles creator, claimed of the app’s target on aesthetics. But she included that the app’s specific target on particular styles of content material has made it less difficult to find a neighborhood that’s interested in the wellness content material she likes to create, whilst the most well known posts on TikTok generally have to attractiveness to a wider viewers.
Some creators say Lemon8 is filling a gap in the social media ecosystem that was still left when Instagram moved to prioritize limited-kind movie content in get to far better contend with TikTok, disheartening numerous creators who joined the app for its initial concentration on photographs.
“We’re not videographers, we’re not the varieties of people who would like to modify the strategies we build material and talk with others just mainly because a platform is prioritizing a single deliverable around the other,” reported Can Ahtam, a specialist photographer who joined Instagram much more than a ten years in the past. “So all of us did come to feel the effects of access remaining decreased with the shots we had been sharing [on Instagram].”
Ahtam extra: “If we were to evaluate them side-by-facet ideal now, Lemon8 would have the upper hand in photographs becoming shared.”
Lemon8’s userbase remains a significantly cry from the 150 million consumers TikTok says it has in the United States.
Nonetheless, in films reviewing Lemon8, some creators have pondered whether the application could in the long run function as a substitute if TikTok had been to get banned in the United States, preserving the written content recommendation algorithm that assisted make TikTok one of the country’s most well known apps and launched the careers of innumerable influencers.
But if TikTok ended up to go down, Lemon8 would probable go with it, in accordance to James Lewis, director of the strategic systems plan at the Centre for Strategic and International Experiments.
“The issue is still the exact, which is that ByteDance is a Chinese enterprise issue to Chinese legislation,” Lewis stated. “If it collects [users’ personal] facts, then you’ve received the same dilemma.”
TikTok, for its element, has explained that its app does not pose a risk to US end users, and that the Chinese governing administration has in no way requested for US user info.
The realistic ramifications for creators of a TikTok (and, maybe by extension, Lemon8) ban — if a person were being enacted — would even now most likely be months away, if not a lot more. Lewis explained he doesn’t assume any nationwide laws to be passed before the end of this 12 months, and it would pretty much unquestionably encounter lawful challenges that could drag out its implementation if it did.
By launching a new app even with TikTok in the highlight, “ByteDance plainly does not experience like they’re at danger,” Lewis stated. And many creators say they’re not automatically anxious both.
Even if TikTok and Lemon8 ended up banned, Cruz reported, “I already have a pursuing on all the other platforms.”