All terms
Every trending Chinese term we have explained, newest first.
刀子dāozi
In fan and ACG culture, a scene in a story that is so sad, cruel, or heartbreaking that the audience feels stabbed; 发刀子 means the author deliberately wrote such a scene.
Slang抓马zhuā mǎ
A phonetic loanword of the English word 'drama': describing a person, situation, or whole day that feels excessively dramatic, over the top, or full of melodramatic conflict.
SlangAI全民制作人AI quán mín zhì zuò rén
A trending term on platforms like Bilibili, referring to ordinary individuals widely participating in image, music, and derivative content production using artificial intelligence tools.
Phrases纯路人chún lù rén
A supposedly neutral outsider in a fandom or online debate, often used ironically when the speaker clearly has an opinion.
Slang爆改bào gǎi
A dramatic, high-contrast transformation of a person, room, product, or idea, usually made for social-media impact.
Slang逆天nì tiān
A flexible internet adjective for something outrageously absurd, extreme, or unbelievably impressive.
Culture梦核mèng hé
A Chinese name for dreamcore: a surreal internet aesthetic built from dreamlike, nostalgic, uncanny images, videos, and music.
Slang抽象chōu xiàng
A Chinese internet label for absurd, anti-logical, surreal humor or behavior that is funny because it makes little conventional sense.
Memes哈基米ha ji mi
A cute meme word from a Japanese song lyric, now used on Chinese platforms for cats, adorable animals, and playful pet-video vibes.
Culture顶流ding liu
A fandom-born label for the celebrity, character, brand, or thing with the highest attention, fan power, and online buzz.
Slang擦边cā biān
Content or behavior that tests the edge of rules, especially suggestive online posts made to attract attention without openly crossing a line.
Phrases出圈chū quān
For a person, work, meme, or product to break beyond its original fan circle and become widely noticed.
Slang手搓shǒu cuō
To hand-build or hack something together from scratch, often with impressive DIY effort.
Memesbelikebī lài kè
A Chinese internet caption word borrowed from English 'be like', used to stage a typical reaction, vibe, or exaggerated example.
Slang老登lǎo dēng
A mocking online label for older men, old-school tastes, or stubborn authority figures, now extended into pop-culture and finance commentary.
Slang老六lǎo liù
A joking insult for someone who plays sneaky, unpredictable, or annoyingly clever tricks, especially in games and online banter.
Culture景区NPCjǐng qū ēn-pī-sī
A real person at a tourist attraction who performs like an in-game NPC to create an immersive, memeable visitor experience.
Slang破防pò fáng
To have one’s emotional defenses broken by something touching, upsetting, embarrassing, or painfully accurate.
Slang整活zhěng huó
To deliberately do something creative, funny, unexpected, or performative for entertainment value.
Slang发疯fā fēng
A playful way to describe letting your emotions spill out in exaggerated, chaotic online speech.
Slang露脚趾羞耻症lù jiǎozhǐ xiūchǐ zhèng
A joking label for feeling embarrassed or exposed when wearing open-toed shoes in public.
Slang吃谷chī gǔ
ACG fandom slang for buying, collecting, and displaying character merchandise, especially badges, cards, acrylic stands, and plushies.
Phrases情绪价值qíng xù jià zhí
The comfort, validation, fun, and sense of being cared for that someone or something gives you emotionally.
Culture断亲duàn qīn
The growing phenomenon of young Chinese cutting off or quietly dropping contact with extended relatives — skipping reunions, ignoring the group chat, letting cousin ties lapse.
Slang松弛感sōngchí gǎn
Effortless, unbothered ease — the aspirational quality of staying calm and unhurried when things go wrong, or of a style that looks beautifully un-forced.
Phrases草台班子cǎotái bānzi
A slapdash, amateurish operation held together with duct tape — now used to say that every organization, however prestigious, is secretly improvising.
Slang偷感tōu gǎn
The self-conscious urge to do things furtively — working out, job hunting, even existing — as if any observed effort would be embarrassing; 'doing everything like you're stealing'.
Slang淡人dàn rén
A low-reactivity person: emotionally muted, hard to excite, replies 'ok' to everything — the opposite of a 浓人 (nóng rén), an intense, expressive person.
Slang班味bān wèi
The unmistakable aura of a worn-down office worker — dull eyes, wrinkled shirt, gray complexion — that clings to you once you've started working and is famously hard to wash off.
Slang那咋了nà zǎ le
'And? So what?' — a breezy, northeastern-flavored shrug used to deflect judgment or anxiety; the motto of not letting anything get to you.
Memes尊嘟假嘟zūn dū jiǎ dū
'For real?!' — a cutesy, baby-talk way of saying 真的假的 (zhēnde jiǎde, 'really? no way!').
Memescity不citycity bù city
'Is it citywalk-cool or not?' — a playful bilingual catchphrase asking whether something is stylish, urban, exciting; by extension 好city = very cool/fun.
Memes泼天的富贵pōtiān de fùguì
A sudden, overwhelming windfall of fortune or fame — used when unexpected massive success lands on someone (or some brand/city), often with the question of whether they can 'catch' it.
Slang显眼包xiǎnyǎnbāo
An adorably attention-grabbing person (or thing) — the class clown, the friend who can't help standing out in a funny, endearing way.
Slang摆烂bǎi làn
To deliberately stop trying and let a bad situation get worse — an ostentatious, even cheerful, embrace of failure.
Slang躺平tǎng píng
To opt out of the rat race — rejecting overwork, consumerism and societal pressure by doing the bare minimum.
Slang内卷nèijuǎn
Pointless, escalating internal competition where everyone works harder and harder but nobody actually ends up better off.
Slang搭子dāzi
A low-commitment activity partner — someone you team up with for one specific thing (eating lunch, going to the gym, traveling) without the obligations of a full friendship.