As U.S. lawmakers move forward with their plans for a TikTok ban or forced sale, the app’s Chinese parent company ByteDance is driving another of its social platforms into the Top Charts of the U.S. App Store. ByteDance-owned app Lemon8, an Instagram rival that describes itself as a “lifestyle community,” jumped into the U.S. Top Charts in the App Store on Monday made it the No. 10 Overall app, whether in apps or games. It now stands at No. 9 on the Top Apps chart in the App Store, excluding games.

This is a dramatic move for the little-known app and points to paid user acquisition efforts powering this surge. Prior to yesterday, the Lemon8 app had never before ranked in the Top 200 Overall Charts in the U.S., according to app store intelligence provided to TechCrunch by data.ai.

The company affirms that such a swift transition from being an unranked app to being No. 9 among the top free apps in the U.S. — ahead of YouTube, WhatsApp, Gmail and Facebook — implies a "significant" and "recent" user acquisition push on the part of the app publisher. Unfortunately, since Lemon8 is so new to the Top Charts of the App Store, third-party firms that analyze apps do not yet have exact data about the number of installs in the United States, or changes in those installs over the past few days.

But given the app was launched globally back in March 2020, what's most likely is that it was quietly released on the U.S. App Store, but only for testing purposes. Then, sometime over the past few days it was more "officially" launched, meaning it was accompanied by this clearly sizable spend on paid discovery or app install ads.

Data from the app intelligence provider Apptopia suggests that Lemon8 launched in both iOS and Android platforms back in March 2020, has so far achieved 16 million global downloads with Japan as its top market accounting for 38 percent of its total installs. While the company does not have a figure for U.S. installs, it managed to estimate the app now boasts 4.25 million monthly active users.

According to Apptopia, it didn't yet see Lemon8 having spent on paid search on either the App Store or Google Play, but cautioned that it may have paid install campaigns that just haven't populated in its system yet or spend that's on networks it doesn't have insight into.

However, we think ByteDance might just be using one of its own channels to drive app installs: TikTok.

On TikTok, we found several creators just started talking about Lemon8 and a lot of new content has been appearing in just the last 24 hours. Many of their reviews are very positive but aren't marked as sponsored.
This is what one creator Gabrielle Victor, speaking to her 435.3K followers, has to say: "it's so f***ing cute. Aesthetically pleasing. It's like Pinterest and Instagram came together and had a baby.

Another creator, Passion Willems (73.9K followers) recommends "if you haven't heard of it, I recommend you run over to the App Store and download it!

Other creators, though, are more suspicious about the TikTok community’s sudden interest in the new app. Ponders Alexandrea Brumfield, “is it a conspiracy that I’ve seen so many of these [Lemon8] videos back to back to back with the TikTok ban being in the news right now?”

Her concerns may not be unfounded.

Last month, Insider reported that ByteDance was quietly rolling out Lemon8 in the U.S. and U.K. and had been paying creators to post on the app to seed its initial U.S. content. The influencers had shared with the news outlet the steps they needed to take to receive payment for their posts. It wouldn't be surprising if some of these new, overly positive TikTok videos about Lemon8 were also a form of paid influencer marketing on ByteDance's part.

What makes us believe that—apart from timing, obviously—is linked to the description that creators within the context of the story inside about Lemon8 used. It mentioned calling it a hybrid mix between Pinterest and Instagram. Those very words are repeated back now by TikTok content creators posting such flattering pieces.

Besides the example above, a scroll through videos matching a Lemon8 keyword search on TikTok has creators repeating the phrase "Pinterest meets Instagram" or "like Instagram and Pinterest had a baby," while describing the app as "sooo cute."

None of the creators we found posting these positive reviews disclosed if they had been paid to publish their videos.

And looking up that term "Lemon8", we have over 350 results after filtering it for last 24 hours videos only and almost all of them are those positive reviews pushing users to download the app. One creator even said they were getting the app in case TikTok gets banned.

Of course, Lemon8 may not be a viable backup plan for a TikTok ban, as lawmakers could consider a wide-ranging set of restrictions on Chinese tech, including on mobile applications far beyond TikTok alone. But ByteDance is not above leaning on creators to make its case — the company sent influencers to Washington ahead of last week's congressional hearing to lobby on behalf of TikTok. But even beyond efforts with its direct involvement, a number of creators are frustrated with the national ban proposed by U.S. lawmakers — not to mention the clear lack of technical understanding demonstrated by the House reps questioning TikTok’s CEO.

As of now, the Lemon8 hashtag on TikTok has 2.3 billion views, but this comprises a lot of non-U.S., non-English language content over a longer period of time. According to The New York Times, the #TikTokBan hashtag has risen to 1.7 billion views on TikTok as of yesterday, with many opposing the ban.