China's One App to Rule them All
Note to Self
WNYC Studios
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2014
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Forget Facebook or Twitter. With the inadvertent help of Chinese government censorship, an app called WeChat has taken over the lives of Chinese-Americans. It's part family lifeline, part public square, part dating site and it could be a model for the evolution of social networks.
This week on New Tech City, hear what's so special about WeChat as we journey through the hilarious story of a vexed husband trying to understand what makes this app so addictive and pervasive in Chinese-American circles. There's annoying patriotic sausages, smokey hot ladies, and a global tech ethnographer all mixed together. Good times.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, friend. This is an episode of Note to Self, but from when we used to be called New Text city. Same good content. Just the old name. Enjoy. |
| 0:12.7 | There is a land without Facebook. There is a land without Twitter. This land has something |
| 0:20.2 | maybe better. |
| 0:22.3 | The app is called WeChat and the land is China. |
| 0:27.6 | And it's on the way to potentially messing with the marriage of my colleague, Steven Messon. |
| 0:33.8 | Steven is a reporter here at WNYC. He lived in China for four years and that's where he met his wife to be. |
| 0:40.9 | They recently set up house together here in New York. |
| 0:44.6 | But for the last few months, all has not been this. |
| 0:49.3 | Hey, Bao. |
| 0:54.0 | What are you doing, Bao? |
| 0:56.0 | This is Steven trying to get his wife, Denah's attention. |
| 0:58.9 | What are you doing? |
| 0:59.6 | He's just finished washing the dinner dishes. |
| 1:02.9 | Silence. |
| 1:04.3 | She's not giving him the cold shoulder. |
| 1:06.7 | Denah has been virtually sucked out of their apartment and into the world of WeChat. |
| 1:13.1 | A Chinese app that has given her a lifeline back to her homeland and helped her stay a part of the Chinese community. |
| 1:21.4 | But before we hear why it is the Chinese app of choice and how it's starting to spread in the US, |
| 1:28.4 | here's how WeChat entered Steven's life. |
| 1:34.4 | Around Chinese New Year in January, my wife and I are at the supermarket. |
| 1:38.4 | But this isn't just any supermarket. |
| 1:40.2 | This is the massive one at the top of the mall in Chinatown in Flushing Queens. |
... |
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