Social media as search engines? Manufactured usefulness and the rise of RedNote in mobile search

Seeking information via social media instead of search engines has become increasingly common. This study examines RedNote, a popular Chinese platform that has emerged as a mobile search tool. Arguing that RedNote’s abundance of useful content plays a key role, I propose the concept of “manufactured usefulness” to capture the constructedness of such content. Individual users, the platform, and, increasingly, advertisers have co-constructed a culture of usefulness, embodied in two prominent content genres: instructional and recommendation posts. Instructional posts teach users the skills they want to learn and help them solve immediate problems, while recommendation posts draw attention to things that people may want to use, experience, or own. Useful posts are expected to possess qualities such as authenticity and communicative efficiency, which further break down into factors (e.g., argumentation, discursive style, formatting, etc.) that can be consciously assembled and employed. Thus, usefulness can be manufactured. RedNote monetizes manufactured usefulness by selling “useful” posts to advertisers, but ubiquitous sponsorships raise users’ doubts about authenticity. Paradoxically, RedNote upholds the banner of authenticity to retain users and further monetize this value, with its underlying commercial logic being both restrictive and productive in shaping the culture of usefulness.