2025 Chinese Internet Memes

A wry rallying cry among Chinese workers anxious about layoffs, AI automation, and a sluggish job market. Emerging around 2025, 'Rice bowl' (饭碗) is a classic metaphor for one's livelihood, and 'protecting' it captures the defensive crouch many employees feel — doing just enough to stay off the layoff list, laughing darkly about job insecurity rather than confronting it head-on. Equal parts survival mantra and self-deprecating humor.

In early 2025, Manus burst onto the Chinese internet as an AI agent tool that could supposedly do everything — browse, code, plan, execute tasks autonomously. It went viral partly because access was invite-only, making it feel exclusive and futuristic. But as more people tried it, the gap between hype and reality sparked jokes. 'Manus' became shorthand for overhyped tech that dazzles in demos but underwhelms in practice — China's answer to the eternal Silicon Valley cycle of breathless promises.

Chinese netizens use '人形机器人' to mock themselves as flesh-and-blood robots — clocking in, executing tasks, clocking out, repeat. Emerging around 2025, it's the ultimate badge of burnout culture: you're not really living, you're just running a program called 'survive capitalism.' Think of it as the Chinese cousin of 'NPC energy,' but with extra existential dread and a side of dark humor about losing all autonomy to work routines.

This meme mashes up humanoid robots — particularly viral footage of Chinese robots performing the traditional northeastern folk dance yangge — with deadpan commentary about automation, repetition, and the surreal pace of AI development. Emerging around 2025, it's used to mock both overhyped tech demos and the soul-crushing grind of doing repetitive work with forced enthusiasm, essentially asking: are we the robots now?

"一人游" describes the trend of traveling or going out alone — not because you have to, but because you choose to. Emerging around 2025, it's the Chinese Gen-Z antidote to the chaos of group trips and the awkwardness of waiting for friends to commit to plans. Think: solo restaurant runs, solo theme parks, solo concerts. It's part lifestyle flex, part quiet declaration of independence, wrapped in a hashtag.

Literally 'one person eating,' this phrase captures the very relatable experience of dining solo — whether by choice or circumstance. Emerging around 2025, what began as a niche lifestyle hashtag has blossomed into a cultural identity for China's growing army of single urbanites. It celebrates the quiet pleasure of ordering exactly what you want, at your own pace, without small talk. Think less 'lonely loser' and more 'independent soul who finally got the window seat.'

The act of posting completely unedited, unfiltered photos of yourself — no skin smoothing, no face-slimming, no color grading. Emerging around 2025, in a country where beauty apps and AI touch-ups are basically the default, slapping '不修图' on your post is a small act of rebellion and a big statement: this is me, pores and all. It signals authenticity, self-acceptance, and a quiet pushback against the relentless pressure to look picture-perfect online.

Imagine ripping off the Instagram-perfect veneer to reveal what life actually looks like underneath. Emerging around 2025, '去滤镜' literally means 'remove the filter' and describes the cultural push to ditch curated, idealized portrayals — of travel destinations, relationships, jobs, bodies, or lifestyles — in favor of raw, unretouched reality. Think: posting the sweaty, crowded tourist spot instead of the dreamy postcard shot. It's part confession, part rebellion against the exhausting performance of a perfect life online.

The art of editing AI-generated text so it no longer screams 'a robot wrote this.' Think scrubbing out the suspiciously perfect structure, the hollow enthusiasm, and phrases like 'certainly!' or 'it's worth noting that.' Chinese netizens coined this to describe the increasingly essential skill of making ChatGPT or similar output sound like an actual human being — flawed, specific, and alive. Emerging around 2025, it's part craft, part survival skill in a world drowning in polished-but-soulless machine prose.

In an era when AI chatbots, algorithmic feeds, and corporate-speak have made everything feel eerily polished and robotic, '人味' (human flavor) is the quality you notice when something — or someone — feels genuinely, messily, warmly alive. Emerging around 2025, it's the antithesis of the suspiciously perfect AI essay, the scripted customer-service drone, or the influencer who never has a bad hair day. If your friend's text made you laugh-cry, that's 人味. If a CEO's apology reads like it was written by a legal team and a language model in a trenchcoat, that's the absence of it.

A paid service where someone role-plays as your romantic partner — texting good morning, listening to your day, and saying all the things a real partner might say if, you know, you had one. Emerging around 2025, popularized on platforms like Taobao and Douyin, 'virtual lovers' fill the emotional void for lonely young Chinese who find dating exhausting, expensive, or just not worth the drama. Think of it as outsourcing your love life to a freelancer.

Your AI ride-or-die. Emerging around 2025, chinese Gen-Z coined 'AI搭子' to describe treating an AI chatbot as a genuine daily companion — the one you vent to after a rough day, brainstorm with at midnight, or ask whether your crush's text means anything. '搭子' originally meant a casual buddy for a specific activity (your lunch"搭子", your gym"搭子"), so slapping 'AI' in front signals a half-joking, half-sincere upgrade: the bot is now a legitimate member of your social circle.

A knowing wink in text form. Emerging around 2025, when someone drops '懂的都懂,' they're signaling that a piece of information is too sensitive, too obvious, or too insider to spell out — and if you need it explained, you're probably not in the club. It's equal parts coded speech, plausible deniability, and smug camaraderie. Think of it as China's internet version of 'I'll just leave this here' or 'say no more.'

Imagine those Chinese web novels where the protagonist effortlessly crushes enemies, gets promoted to CEO, and wins every argument with a devastating one-liner. Emerging around 2025, now imagine that happening in real life — except it kind of doesn't. '爽文现实版' is the meme format where people narrate their mundane or humiliating daily experiences using the triumphant, over-the-top language of power fantasy fiction, creating a delicious gap between the heroic framing and the crushingly ordinary reality.

While 'lying flat' (躺平) means refusing to hustle and opting out of the rat race, 'reverse lying flat' is the chaotic twist: you look completely unbothered on the outside — posting memes, napping, loudly declaring you've given up — while secretly grinding harder than ever. It's performative laziness as a coping mechanism, a way to lower everyone's expectations (including your own) while still desperately trying to succeed. Peak 2025 energy.

夹角打工人 (The Wedged/Angled Worker) describes the psychological middle ground that millions of Chinese young professionals find themselves trapped in: too exhausted to compete frantically (内卷), but too anxious or ambitious to completely give up (躺平). The term uses the geometric image of being wedged at an angle — not standing upright (fully participating in the rat race) but not lying flat either — capturing the uncomfortable, unsustainable position between two extreme responses to China's high-pressure work culture. The term resonated deeply in 2025 as economic uncertainty made both complete surrender and full commitment feel impossible. 夹角打工人 are the ones who still show up, still try, but have made peace with not being the best — and feel guilty about all of it. It's a more nuanced, honest description of the millennial/Gen-Z work experience than either of its parent concepts.

外耗 (External Consumption/Drain) is the direct antidote to 内耗 (internal consumption, meaning self-destructive overthinking and anxiety). While 内耗 describes the exhausting cycle of worrying, second-guessing, and mentally spiraling alone, 外耗 proposes a radically different solution: externalize it. Instead of staying up all night replaying an awkward conversation, call the person and have the awkward conversation. Instead of silently resenting a colleague who took credit for your work, say something in the meeting. The term became popular in 2025 as a kind of psychological self-defense manual for a generation raised on conflict-avoidance. It's not about being aggressive — it's about recognizing that the energy you spend worrying internally could be spent addressing the problem externally. '与其内耗自己，不如外耗他人' (rather than draining yourself internally, drain others externally) became the unofficial motto of the movement.

馕言文 (Naan Language/Literature) is a viral linguistic meme from 2025 where Chinese netizens imitate the distinctive inverted sentence structure of Xinjiang Mandarin — a regional dialect influenced by Uyghur and other Turkic languages. The name combines 馕 (naan, the iconic Xinjiang flatbread) with 言文 (language/text), humorously branding this speech pattern as a 'naan-flavored' literary style. The typical 馕言文 pattern inverts standard Mandarin word order, often placing verbs at the end of sentences or rearranging modifiers in ways that sound charmingly 'wrong' to standard Mandarin speakers. For example, '你干什么去' (where are you going?) might become '干什么去你'. The meme spread rapidly on Douyin through skits where creators speak in exaggerated Xinjiang-accented Mandarin, and evolved into a full internet literary genre with users composing entire posts, poems, and song lyrics in the style. It represents a rare moment of positive, affectionate regional stereotyping in Chinese internet culture.

丝瓜汤文学 (Luffa Soup Literature) originated from a viral 2025 Douyin video showing a mother repeatedly forcing her adult son to drink luffa (sponge gourd) soup — a dish he clearly dislikes — while insisting 'it's for your own good.' The video's uncomfortable authenticity struck a universal nerve: every Chinese person has been on the receiving end of well-intentioned but coercive parental love. The 'literature' designation comes from the flood of creative responses the video inspired. Netizens wrote elaborate parodies, dramatic readings, and alternate endings — transforming a domestic dispute into a full-fledged literary genre. The 丝瓜汤 becomes a metaphor for all the things parents force on their children 'for their own good': career choices, marriage partners, lifestyle habits, and dietary restrictions. The meme is simultaneously funny and painful, comedy built on collective trauma.

邪修 (Heretical Cultivation) is a term borrowed from Chinese xianxia (immortal cultivation) fiction, where it refers to practitioners who pursue power through forbidden or unconventional methods — the dark side of the cultivation world. In 2025, Chinese netizens repurposed the term to describe gloriously unorthodox life hacks and cooking methods that violate every rule of tradition but somehow work. The archetypal 邪修 moment: someone posts a recipe for braised chicken feet made with Sprite instead of water, or renders lard in a microwave, or uses a hair straightener to make grilled cheese. These aren't just shortcuts — they're deliberate violations of culinary orthodoxy, and their practitioners embrace the 'heretical' label with pride. The term spread from Xiaohongshu cooking communities to encompass any clever-but-wrong-feeling solution to everyday problems, from relationship hacks to productivity tricks.

预制人 (Prefab Person) extends the concept of 预制菜 (pre-made meals / prepackaged food) from the culinary world to human beings. Just as 预制菜 are mass-produced, uniform, and lack the soul of home cooking, a 预制人 is someone — or something — that feels mass-produced: the influencer with identical aesthetic to a thousand others, the AI-generated social media post with its telltale verbal tics, the job candidate whose resume and interview answers sound copy-pasted from a career advice account. The term captures a growing anxiety in 2025 China: as AI tools become ubiquitous and social media algorithms reward conformity, are people becoming less human? When every Xiaohongshu post looks the same, every Douyin dance follows the same choreography, and every WeChat conversation includes AI-generated replies, the line between authentic human expression and prefabricated content blurs. 预制人 is both a critique of this homogenization and a self-deprecating acknowledgment that we're all a little bit pre-made at this point.

主理人 (Chief Curator / Principal) is the title upgrade of 2025 — replacing 老板 (boss), 创始人 (founder), and 店主 (shop owner) with something that sounds more like a creative director than a business operator. The term originally came from Japanese fashion retail culture, where boutique owners were called 主理人 to emphasize their curatorial vision and personal taste rather than their commercial role. In 2025, 主理人 exploded across Chinese social media as every small business owner rebranded themselves. The neighborhood noodle shop owner became a '面馆主理人' (noodle house principal). The friend who sells insurance on the side introduced themselves as '风险管理主理人' (risk management curator). The term's journey from mockery to mainstream acceptance mirrors the gig economy's evolution — when everyone is a personal brand, everyone needs a title that says 'I'm not just selling something, I'm curating a vision.'

养龙虾 (Raising Lobsters) is a playful 2025 term for using AI tools to do your job for you — effectively farming out your work to a digital crustacean. The term originated when users discovered they could configure AI agents (particularly through tools like OpenClaw) to handle routine tasks: responding to emails, writing reports, generating code, even attending virtual meetings. 'Lobster' is a whimsical personification of the AI — a creature you 'raise' (train and maintain) that does your bidding while you collect the paycheck. The term reflects the creative, slightly guilty way Chinese office workers discuss AI labor substitution. Unlike the anxious discourse around AI replacing jobs, 养龙虾 is about the worker using AI to reclaim their time — it's not AI taking your job, it's you deploying AI to do your job while you do something else. The agricultural metaphor (养 = to raise/farm) frames AI management as a form of husbandry rather than a technical skill, making it feel accessible and slightly absurd.

回！答！我！(ANSWER! ME!) originated from Bilibili game streamer 小明剑魔 (Xiao Ming Jian Mo), whose signature move during heated gaming moments was to roar '回！答！我！' at his screen with operatic intensity. The phrase — punctuated with exclamation marks to capture its percussive delivery — is less a request and more a sonic assault, delivered with the force of someone who has been waiting for an explanation far too long. The meme exploded when AI remix culture got hold of it. Using AI voice synthesis tools, creators inserted the roaring '回！答！我！' into completely inappropriate contexts: a quiet library scene, a wedding ceremony, a national news broadcast, a nature documentary. The juxtaposition of the streamer's unhinged energy with calm settings created a new genre of comedy. By late 2025, '回！答！我！' had become the standard way to demand an answer — from a friend who left you on read, from a boss who won't explain the new policy, from the universe about why everything is so expensive.

如何呢又能怎 (So What, What Can You Do) is the verbal equivalent of a shrug — a phrase that acknowledges a bad situation and simultaneously declares total surrender to it. Originating from singer 单依纯's improvised stage ad-lib where she extended a lyric's '如何呢' (so what) into '如何呢又能怎' (so what, what can you even do about it), the phrase became the unofficial motto of 2025 for anyone dealing with situations beyond their control. The phrase's power lies in its rhetorical structure: it asks a question and immediately answers it with another question that negates the premise of action. '如何呢' (what about it?) — a challenge to care. '又能怎' (what can you do anyway?) — an acknowledgment of powerlessness. Together, they form a complete emotional arc: from potential engagement to total disengagement, in five characters. It's perfect for responding to bad news at work, disappointing political developments, rising prices, or a friend's questionable life choices. The phrase traveled from Douyin to WeChat to everyday speech, becoming the go-to verbal shrug of a generation.

不舒服文学 (Uncomfortable Literature) is the art of saying no through elaborate, creative descriptions of being uncomfortable. Originating from a variety show moment where actor Wang Hedi (王鹤棣) used '我不舒服' (I'm uncomfortable) as an all-purpose escape hatch, the phrase evolved into a full literary genre where users compete to invent the most creative 'discomfort' that prevents them from doing something they don't want to do. The classic 不舒服文学 post reads like a medical chart written by a poet: '今天的精神状态不适合参加团建，我的灵魂有点过敏' (Today's mental state is not suitable for team building, my soul is having an allergic reaction). It's not lying — it's elevating the truth to an art form. The genre is particularly popular among young professionals navigating the endless social obligations of Chinese workplace culture, where direct refusal can be socially costly. 不舒服文学 provides a face-saving alternative: you're not saying no, you're just... uncomfortable. In a very specific, creatively described way.

力工 (Laborer) has undergone a dramatic semantic shift in 2025-2026 Chinese internet culture. Originally a neutral term for manual laborers, it has become a loaded label for men who sacrifice everything — savings, personal interests, self-development — for marriage and family, only to be treated as nothing more than a paycheck. The term crystallizes a specific male anxiety: being valued solely for your earning capacity while your emotional needs and personal identity are invisible. The meme gained explosive traction through the controversy surrounding Olympic boxing champion Zou Shiming (邹市明), whose wife publicly disclosed that the family had lost 200 million RMB in failed business ventures. Comment sections flooded with users labeling Zou a 力工 — a man who had earned fame and fortune through blood and sweat, only to see it drained by his spouse's mismanagement. The incident sparked a broader reckoning about financial dynamics in modern Chinese marriages. The related term '力工梭哈' (Laborer All-In) describes men who stake their entire life savings on marriage — bride price, house, car — in what critics frame as an all-or-nothing gamble with terrible odds.