China’s Top Ten Internet Buzzwords for 2021 Released

On Monday, the “Top Ten Internet Buzzwords for 2021” was released by the National Language Resource Monitoring and Research Center, including: The Age of Awakening, YYDS, Double Reduction, Po Fang, Metaverse, Juejuezi, Lie Flat, “It’s more of an insult than injury,” “I can’t understand it, but I’m shocked,” and “I am one member of our strong nation.”

The list is based on the internet division of the National Language Resource Monitoring Corpus, which contains language resources in different media forms, such as “video bullets” (a video commenting feature), online forum and news. The number of video bullet data involved in this ranking is about 1.1 billion, with over 10 billion characters. The online forum data contains about 350,000 posts with more than 300 million characters.

The Age of Awakening traces back to the founding process of the Communist Party of China in the form of TV series. After the play was broadcast, it was widely praised and became a vivid teaching material for the study of CPC’s history.

YYDS is a pinyin abbreviation for “Yong Yuan De Shen,” which is used to express high admiration and worship for someone or something. A prominent national policy, “Double Reduction” refers to reducing students’ homework and off-campus training burdens in compulsory education.

The term “Po Fang” originally came from the gaming community. Gamers use the term when they are attacked and their defenses have been broken down. The term, similar to the English phrases, “this really got me” or “I’m shook,” is now used beyond the gaming world and has become a catch phrase that young people use to express that something has left them emotionally vulnerable or shaken by strong feelings.

SEE ALSO: Bilibili Announces 2021 Bullet Chat of the Year: “Po Fang Le”

Metaverse originated from the sci-fi concept of the novel Snow Crash, and now refers to notions of the future internet, supporting persistent online 3D virtual environments through conventional personal computing, as well as virtual and augmented reality headsets.

“Juejuezi,” which is equivalent to “wonderful,” was popular in an online show in which fans cheer for the certain contestants.

“Lying flat” means that when people face pressure, they give up voluntarily without any resistance. “Lying flat” is more like a way of decompression for young people. The purpose of “lying flat” for a short time is to accumulate energy and start again.

In an online video, two men serve food with chopsticks to each other, while another woman at the same table looks lonely. Therefore, some netizens ridiculed that “it’s more of an insult than injury.”

“I can’t understand it, but I’m shocked” comes from director Ang Lee’s comments on the The Virgin Spring in the documentary Trespassing Bergman. Now it is mostly used to express one’s shock to something.

“I am one member of our strong nation” originated from the solemn oath of young students at the 100th anniversary celebration of the founding of the CPC. The term shows the ambition and confidence of Chinese youth in the new era.