Hearing a lot about Lemon8 lately? You’re not the only one.
Amid a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, content creators have been pushing the platform’s sister app. Lemon8 resembles an amalgamation of the types of short-form videos found on TikTok and the picture-perfect aesthetic of Instagram and Pinterest.
Like its popular relation, Lemon8 is owned by China-based ByteDance, whose collection of internationally available apps also includes the video editing app CapCut and the photo and art editing app Hypic. In addition, the company operates Douyin, the Chinese sibling of TikTok that follows Beijing’s strict censorship rules.
Lemon8 launched in the U.S. in 2023, a few years after it first popped up in Asian markets. Though it garnered some media and user interest in its early days, the app hasn’t taken off as much as TikTok, which has more than 170 million U.S. users.
But more people have downloaded the app in the past month, making it one of the top-ranking free apps on Apple’s app store. Lemon8’s popularity could potentially soar further depending on the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court hearing Friday over a law requiring TikTok to break ties with ByteDance or face a U.S. ban.
TikTok says it plans to shut down the platform in the U.S. by Jan. 19 if the government prevails, as it did in a lower court.
What are creators saying about Lemon8?
Influencers previously partnered with Lemon8 to promote the lesser-known app on TikTok. In recent weeks, many of them have hailed Lemon8 as the place to go if TikTok is banned under federal law. Some have also been recommending it through paid sponsored posts tagged #lemon8partner, showing a recent corporate push to generate more users.
But there’s a hitch. The law, which would wipe out TikTok’s U.S. operation if it’s not sold to an approved buyer, states the divest-or-ban requirement applies generally to apps that are owned or operated by ByteDance, TikTok or any of their subsidiaries. That means even though Lemon8 and CapCut are not explicitly named in the statute, their futures in the U.S. also are in jeopardy.
Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at market research company Emarketer, noted that the creators recommending Lemon8 may not be aware of the possible implications for the other ByteDance apps because the law does not identify them.
The recent Lemon8 ads on TikTok also may be a sign that ByteDance is “hoping or betting” Lemon8 slips through the cracks as lawmakers and regulators focus their attention on TikTok, Enberg said. Representatives for the companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
