公主病
What Does 公主病 Mean?
Think of someone who genuinely believes the world is her royal court and everyone else is staff. Emerging around 2023, 'Princess Syndrome' describes a woman (or girl) with an inflated sense of entitlement — expecting to be pampered, catered to, and treated like royalty without reciprocating. In Chinese internet culture it's a sharp dig at self-centeredness in relationships and daily life, though it has also been reclaimed tongue-in-cheek by women who wear it as a badge of playful self-indulgence.
Origin Story
公主病 (gōng zhǔ bìng, 'princess syndrome' or 'princess disease') entered the Chinese lexicon well before 2023 — the term had been used in East Asian popular psychology since at least the 2000s, describing a pattern of entitled, self-centred behaviour attributed (often with gendered condescension) to young women who expected to be treated like royalty. Its resurgence on Chinese social media in 2023, however, reflected a shift in the term's deployment: from a label weaponised largely against women to a more general diagnosis of entitled behaviour that could, in principle, be applied to anyone. On Douyin and Xiaohongshu, the term appeared in relationship-advice content, workplace complaint narratives, and self-help discourse, often in contexts where users were analysing — and rejecting — the expectation that they should tolerate unreasonable demands from partners, colleagues, or family members. This reclamation repurposed the term's critical edge: rather than being used to police women's behaviour, 公主病 was increasingly deployed to identify and refuse the entitled behaviour of others. The shift was subtle and incomplete — the term retained its gendered baggage — but it reflected broader changes in the discourse around relationships and self-respect on Chinese social media, where younger users, particularly women, were developing increasingly sophisticated vocabularies for identifying and naming interpersonal dysfunction.
Cultural Context
As China's middle class expanded and single-child families became the norm, critics argued that some young women grew up over-pampered. Dating culture amplified the discourse — men on forums complained about high-maintenance partners while women pushed back, arguing the label polices female self-worth. By 2023 the term lives comfortably in both sincere criticism and ironic self-description. The term originated and spread primarily on Tieba (Baidu Post Bar).
Similar Expressions in English
搭子MBTI捞女
How Is It Used?
Chinese Explanation (中文解释)
指女性过度自我中心、期待被宠溺、不切实际地要求被特殊对待的心理或行为模式。