The Chinese social media landscape is developing rapidly: networks such as WeChat and Weibo have managed to grow by several hundred million users within just a few years. As new networks and communication options emerge, the language is also changing.
One look at the passengers on the Shanghai metro during the morning rush hour is enough to understand that it is not only young people who use social media excessively to communicate with their fellow human beings and to comment, share, or like content. Many Internet users often use special terms or give words a new meaning. It is worthwhile for companies to pick up some of the code words to start a conversation with Internet users.
DUANG
A new creation from a shampoo advertisement with Jacky Chen from 2004. The Hong Kong actor says something like: “After filming, visual effects are created that make the hair – duang – black, shiny and very soft. Although social media experts have not yet been able to agree on a uniform definition, the term has been the subject of numerous discussions in internet forums, social media, and even television shows for over ten years.
On February 20, 2015, the term appeared in a Jacky Chen parody on the video-sharing platform Bilibili. Discussions about the expression and its meaning increased significantly as a result of the Jacky Chen parody. There are now over eight million entries under the hashtag on Sina Weibo. On Baidu, its meaning has been searched for over 600,000 times.
Singles’ Day
A term created by Alibaba. The online marketing giant attracts customers every year on November 11th with discount campaigns on its sales platforms such as Taobao and TMall. “Singles’ Day” is now the world’s most popular online discount event. In November 2015, sales on TMall reached over 11 billion US dollars. Every year in November becomes one of the leading Weibo hashtags.
Mobile Lover
In China, the pressure from parents on young people between the ages of 25 and 30 is enormous: finding the right partner, getting married, and buying an apartment. Not everyone can meet their parents’ high expectations and some look for a solution online.
On Taobao, people who cannot find a real boyfriend or girlfriend have the option of finding a virtual partner who sends SMS or WeChat messages. In extreme cases, desperate people can even “rent” a partner to introduce to their parents.
Ant Tribe
The term refers to the millions of university graduates who flock to the cities with a population of one million in the hope of finding well-paid jobs, but who can usually only keep themselves afloat with an underpaid job. Skyrocketing rents and a highly competitive job market mean that many of them are denied social advancement. In the residential towers in the suburbs of the cities with a population of one million, the young people merge into a large, anonymous mass.
Rat Tribe
In China’s social networks, there is also frequent talk of another “tribe”: unskilled migrant workers who live under precarious conditions in cities with a population of one million. To avoid having to spend long periods on buses and subways, many choose accommodation close to their workplaces.