As TikTok faces threats of a ban in the U.S., its China-based parent company ByteDance has been courting creators for Lemon8, its app that rivals Instagram. Self-described as a “hobbyist community,” the image-based app’s homepage features TikTok-like “Following” and “For You” feeds, and divides content into categories such as fashion, beauty and travel.
Lemon8 has been climbing Apple’s U.S. App Store’s charts of downloads, soaring to the No. 10 spot earlier this week, and it’s still charting ahead of other social media apps including Snapchat and Twitter. Prior to Monday, the little-known app had never been ranked in the top 200 most downloaded apps in the U.S., according to TechCrunch. It’s available to download on mobile, but hasn’t been formally launched in the U.S.
