Linguistic expressions of despondency: an investigation of Sangness-related Chinese catchwords

3.4.1 Target word identification

This study is focused on the Sangness-related catchwords that have been selected as the annual top ten catchwords by Biting Words and Chewing Words in the past ten years.

This study followed three major criteria to decide whether a Chinese catchword in Table 1 was Sangness-related or not. These three criteria are in fact the three essential features of the Sang discourse suggested by Xue (2019): (1) describing the current state of life lived by the youth group and denoting a sense of negativity, (2) running counter to the mainstream culture and eliciting a sense of ritual resistance, and (3) self-satirizing and self-mocking so as to give up struggles. A Chinese catchword must be found to have all the three features before it can be categorized as Sangness-related. For instance, 躺平 (lying flat) is identified as a Sangness-related catchword in that it meets all the three criteria of expressing negativity, disagreeing with the mainstream Chinese social value of working hard and mocking oneself for not trying and having a tendency to stop working. In contrast, 杠精 (contrarian) is not considered a Sangness-related catchword because it does not imply a possible refusal to work hard, despite the fact that it is negative in meaning and incongruent with the mainstream social value of being kind and tolerant.

3.4.2 Target sentence collection and analysis

The present study tried to collect target sentences from Weibo, a prominent Chinese social media platform with functional similarity to Twitter (Li et al. 2020). To be specific, it used the Weibo search engine to look for sentences containing each and every one of the target words. Of the many sentences that contain the target words, only those suggestive of a strong despondency were kept for further analysis. When analyzing the functions of target sentences, emphasis was placed on the target words. To present the selected sentences as they were, no improvements were made in the writing of this article even when typos or inaccurate punctuations were detected. To illustrate, a screenshot of collecting target sentences on Weibo is given.

Figure 1 shows that a search for 内卷 (involution) on Weibo produced a Chinese sentence “就业难已经不是新鲜事, 985 毕业生及硕士生竞聘卷烟厂一线流水岗, 竞争都已经呈现白热化的趋势, 出现了‘就业内卷’”. This Chinese sentence is a run-on sentence in that it overused commas, some of which should be replaced by full stops. However, to present this sentence in the most authentic way, no efforts were made to correct its punctuations when it was later used as a sample sentence for analysis.

Figure 1:

A screenshot of searching for Sangness-related catchwords and sample sentences on Weibo.

4.1.1 Ge You Slouch

Ge You Slouch refers to the posture of Ge You, a famous Chinese comedian, when he acted in a popular Chinese sitcom I Love My Family, which was shown on TV in 1993. Lying on the sofa, Ge You stared into the distance with empty eyes, his clothes sloppy, his muscles flappy and his expression spiritless, as if there was nothing in the world that could arouse his interest (see Figure 2). It came as a surprise that the still of Ge You Slouch and the phrase itself went viral more than twenty years after the sitcom was first showed on TV. Given that Ge You Slouch suggested a strong sense of laziness and aloofness, Ge You Slouch was used to refer to a state of resigning oneself to fate and not trying any more. This meme is thought to be the origin of the Sang subculture.

Figure 2:

Still of Ge You Slouch from the Chinese TV series I Love My Family.

4.1.2 Feeling awful and wanting to cry

The meaning of feeling awful and wanting to cry is so self-evident that it renders any linguistic explanation unnecessary. What is worth mentioning, however, is how this catchword came into being, which has an unexpected touch of humor. In October 2016, a young man from Nanning City, Guangxi Province lamented his sad feelings in a video after breaking up with his girlfriend. Because his Mandarin is not standard, he mispronounced “Nan Shou” (sad) as “Lan Shou” (blue and thin) and “Xiang Ku” (wanting to cry) as “Xiang Gu” (fragrant mushroom). His poor pronunciation entertained his viewers so much that they quickly spread his video and pronunciation wide and far. In this way this phrase became a Chinese catchword, which is used to express people’s frustrations and sadness in a humorous way. The popularity of this catchword may be related to the current social reality that many Chinese people are living under stress, looking for a channel to vent their repressed emotions.

4.1.3 Buddha-like

Buddha-like refers to a lifestyle or an attitude towards life that takes everything lightly, shows little interest in the worldly affairs and involves living one’s life according to one’s own will. This word originated from a Japanese magazine which in 2014 reported a group of Buddha-like men. These men were preoccupied with themselves, believing it too troublesome to date females and get married. Buddha-like is not only an Internet catchword, but also a cultural phenomenon. It is used to express giving up personal standpoints or struggles, resigning oneself to fate or blindly following other people’s suit. The fact that a considerable number of Chinese young people scramble to describe themselves as Buddha-like indicates they are, in the face of increasing competition and pressure, lowering their expectations. As a self-mocking term, Buddha-like implies a decadent, negative attitude towards life.

4.1.4 996 work schedule

996 work schedule refers to the working system of starting working at 9:00 A.M. and finishing working at 9:00 P.M., taking 1 h or less off at noon and evening, working for more than 10 h a day 6 days a week. This working system was exposed on March 27th, 2019 when a project with the name of “996. ICU” was launched on GitHub, which is a world-famous hosting platform for computer programmers. In this project, Chinese computer programmers exposed the “996. ICU” Internet companies they were working for, calling for a boycott of the 996 working system. The 996 working system is in clear violation of the current Labor Law of the People’s Republic of China, which clearly stipulates that the daily working hours of workers cannot exceed 8 h and the average weekly working hours cannot exceed 44 h. It is used by Chinese IT workers to protest against the overtime culture of Chinese Internet enterprises.

4.1.5 Life is too hard for me

Life is too hard for me as a catchword dates back to a short video released by an Internet celebrity with the name of Giao Ge (Brother Giao). In this video, Brother Giao knitted his eyebrows and said: “life is too hard for me, my friend. I have been under a lot of pressure recently.” Brother Giao’s expression of frustrations was so genuine that he struck an instant chord with his viewers, many of whom were actually feeling the same way. Living in a fast-changing society such as China, many people feel that they have little time to rest. Burdened by the external expectations or pressure, they find it difficult to vent their true feelings. The popularity of this zinger reflects the pressure of the contemporary Chinese youth and the difficult life they are living. “Wo (I) tai (too) nan (south) le (interjection mark)” (Life is too south for me) is the homophonic of “Wo (I) tai (too) nan (hard) le (interjection mark)” (Life is too hard for me). The two can be used interchangeably to let out the mounting pressure and increasing helplessness felt by the Chinese young people.

4.1.6 Laborer

Laborer is a general address term for people engaged in either manual work or technical work. It can be used to refer to blue-collared construction workers, white-collared office workers, intermediate-level company leaders or self-made entrepreneurs. On September 22nd, 2020, a netizen with the name of Chouxiang Dai Lanzi (Abstract Belt Basket) posted a short self-portrait video on the Internet. In this video, he made the appearance of going out to work, using the caption that “the hardworking man (referring to himself) has already run to the tower crane, but you (referring to the video viewers) are stretching yourself in the quilt. You don’t take your life seriously at all. Good morning, laborer!” He deliberately boasted his identity as a laborer in a joking way. This video attracted a great deal of attention and imitation, as a result of which the term “laborer” became an immediate popular term on the Chinese Internet. Behind the popularity of laborer is the self-ridicule of young people about their heavy life burden, their dissatisfaction with the high-pressure environment, and their unwillingness to resign to a mediocre life. The term “laborer” is thus a kind of black humor among Chinese adults, especially the young.

4.1.7 Involution

Involution, which literally means evolving inward or circling, refers to excessive competition or meaningless consumption. It occurs when a certain social resource is limited, but there are an increasing number of people competing for it with the result that everyone involved gains progressively less but pays more, and everyone involved feels gradually more tired or disillusioned. For individuals, involution is a silent, unconscious consumption of personal resources. For the society, involution is a pitiful waste of social resources, lowering its overall efficiency and external competitiveness. Involution as a catchword is used to mock the current social reality that people are confronted with excessive competition and crushing pressure.

4.1.8 Lying flat

Lying flat as a catchword was popularized by Luo Huazhong, who in April 2021 wrote a blog post about the new laid-back lifestyle he had adopted since quitting his job as a factory worker. The title of the blog post translated into English as “lying flat is justice” and featured a photo of him literally lying flat on his back. He wrote about his plan to live off savings while relaxing in his home and living a less materialistic life. The post went viral on the Chinese Internet, attracting many others to join the movement as an anti-consumerist pushback against the hypercompetitive and high-pressured corporate culture as well as other societal expectations.

4.1.9 Mental internal friction

Mental internal friction, which is a technical term in mental health, refers to the need for people to use psychological resources when they want to exercise self-control. When resources are insufficient, people are likely to be trapped in a state of the so-called internal exhaustion. The long-term existence of internal exhaustion could make people feel tired. This kind of fatigue is not caused by physical fatigue. It is a subjective psychological feeling and a mental state caused by individual psychological losses. Mental internal friction often leads to negative feelings such as anxiety, tension, confusion, regret, and suspicion. Long-term mental internal frictions could destroy a person’s enthusiasm and capability, inducing a sense of self-blame and self-denial. The popularity of this catchword mirrors the increasing anxiety and pressure that are felt by many Chinese people.

4.2.1 Deconstructing mainstream values

“Language is not only an instrument of communication or even of knowledge, but also an instrument of power” (Bourdieu 1977: 645, cited in Thompson 1984: 46). The Sang subculture is reflected in language by reversing or deconstructing the linguistic expressions of the mainstream values (Liu 2018). Youth subcultural groups, when attempting to construct a discourse of their own, are driven by a spontaneous urge to be different from their parents (Hall and Jefferson 2015). As the earliest and most frequent users of the Chinese Internet, the Chinese youth tried on the onset to shake off the moral constraints imposed on them, breaking away from the culture developed by their parents. However, their resistance attempts were severely thwarted by the huge economic pressure of purchasing a car or an apartment and the increasing difficulty of enhancing their social class and realizing their personal values. In the present day, under such circumstances, they may feel powerless and become disillusioned, thus developing negativities which are not part of the mainstream values. For example, the mainstream Chinese working culture advocates that workers should devote themselves to work, not objecting to overtime work; whereas the Sang subculture stresses that working overtime is an exploitation act of the cruel capitalists, calling for workers to loaf on their jobs. This can be seen clearly from Weibo discourses containing the Sangness-related Chinese catchwords.

In Example (1), the Sangness-related Chinese catchword laborer is depicted as the sad victim of the over-demanding working requirement, thus reversing the traditional image of the laborer portrayed by the mainstream culture. When the work of the laborer is only measured by financial terms, which is what the Sang subculture suggests, it is inevitable the value of work and the image of the laborer will be downplayed.

In Example (2), the Sangness-related Chinese catchword Buddha-like is used to reverse the implications of building interpersonal relationships and striving for a stable profession. This is made possible by the fact that Buddha-like contains a passive, inactive philosophy of doing nothing at all, giving up all aspirations or attempts to live up to the expectations of the mainstream society.

In Example (3), the Sangness-related Chinese catchword involution is used to refer to the intense competition in job hunting. The intensity of the competition is so strong that the Weibo user finds the neutral word competition inadequate, thus resorting to the negative word involution.

4.2.2 Expressing self-mockery

Self-mockery is a speech act in which one makes fun of oneself. A striking feature of self-mocking is that its literal meaning may not be its intended meaning. That is, what is said may deviate from or even run opposite to what is meant. Self-mocking is frequently used in the discourse construction of the Sang subculture in that it can highlight the effect of the narrative but obscure its cause, thus generating the pragmatic expression of affirmation through negation. Qi (2018) suggests that Sangness-related Chinese catchwords denote a strong self-mockery. On the surface, these words portray a decadent mentality of not wanting to work and feeling depressed. In actuality, however, users of such words do not truly agree with the negativities embedded in the Sang subculture. Qi goes on to say that Sangness-related Chinese catchwords are linguistic means of self-mockery and stress-relief used by people who are faced with the huge pressure of life.

In Example (4), the Weibo user makes an explicit use of the Sangness-related Chinese catchword Ge You Slouch to convey a sense of despondency. However, no mention is made of the cause of such a discourse that despite the great efforts this person is making, he is not getting anywhere. This is the learned helplessness suggested by Du (2017). The same thing can be found in other examples containing the Sangness-related Chinese catchwords.

In Example (5), the Sangness-related catchword lying flat is used by a student Weibo user to ridicule the fact that although he is burning the mid-night oil to study, he still lags far behind his fellow student in academic performance.

In Example (6), the Weibo user, who is faced with a mounting mid-life pressure, complains about the unsatisfying life he is living by the loud cry of the Sangness-related catchword feeling awful and wanting to cry. Despite the Chinese cultural tradition that men should not shed tears capriciously, this man gives up his manly dignity and gets ready to cry with the purpose of mocking at the hard life he is living.

In Example (7), the Weibo user is using the Sangness-related catchword life is too hard for me to mock the stalemate he has met in the stock market. Given the great risks involved in the stock investments, this investor cannot be considered as a loser because he is not losing money. His worry rests in the fact that he is not making big profits. Unhappy with his meagre returns he is yielding, this investor complains that life is too difficult for him, which is not a harsh criticism made by other people, but a bitter self-mockery made by himself.

4.2.3 Seeking value recognition

According to Willis (2013), in the internal structure of every unique subculture, each part is organically connected with other parts. It is through such connections that subcultural members understand the world they live in. Compared with the classic subcultural groups such as hippies and punks, the Internet youth subcultural groups, due to the changes in media and activity spaces, find it hard to identify with each other by appearance or image characteristics. The Sang subcultural groups, however, are capable of seeking value recognition from each other by accumulating negative feelings and encoding them in linguistic means. As the vast majority of the young people living in the fast-developing Internet age are faced with problems such as increasing competitions, repeated setbacks, great stresses and a loss of motivations, they can easily identify with the Sangness-related Chinese catchwords.

In Example (8), the Sangness-related Chinese catchword 996 work schedule is used to refer to the harsh reality that some Chinese companies demand that their workers start working at 9 A.M. and finish working at 9 P.M. and work 6 days a week. This over-demanding work schedule is in sharp contrast to 888 which suggests spending each day by working 8 h, sleeping 8 h and entertaining 8 h. Over-burdened by the long working hours demanded of them, young Chinese IT workers easily empathize with each other by the use of 996.

In Example (9), the Sangness-related Chinese catchword mental internal friction is used to expose a particular spiritual agony that is afflicting an increasing number of Chinese young people. Mental internal friction is the emotional expression used by young people to describe the profound doubt they have about themselves and the deep regrets they have about their past. This emotion is so strong that it cannot be dismissed through self-regulation, thus forming an internal friction. The permeating despondency on the Internet makes it possible for young people to realize they are not alone in having such a problem. When they find that they themselves are not an island, there appears a venue for them to ease their internal friction. Through group interactions of the Sang subculture, the youth group is able to obtain an emotional relief in the way of value recognition. This has actually become another important function of the Sangness-related Chinese catchwords.

4.3.1 An increasing diversity

The first developmental feature of Sangness-related Chinese catchwords is an increasing diversity. This can be seen from the digital growth of such words from zero to nine. In the first four years of the past decade from 2013 to 2022, no Sangness-related catchwords were selected by Biting Words and Chewing Words as the top ten annual Chinese catchwords. In the ensuing six years from 2017 to 2022, however, nine of such words were selected. Given that each and every one of these words has its unique form, it is possible to say that they are becoming increasingly diverse. In addition to form, the diversity of Sangness-related catchwords can also be found in content in that some deal with behavior and attitude (i.e., Ge You Slouch, Buddha-like, and lying flat), some touch upon emotions (i.e., feeling awful and wanting to cry, and life is too hard for me), some explore causes (i.e., 996 work schedule, involution and mental internal friction) while others reveal identity (i.e., laborer). Furthermore, origins of Sangness-related catchwords are diverse, too, as some derive from the pop culture (i.e., Ge You Slouch, feeling awful and wanting to cry, life is too hard for me, Buddha-like, and lying flat), some stem from the corporate culture (i.e., 996 work schedule and laborer), while others can be traced back to economics (i.e., involution) and psychology (i.e., mental internal friction). The increasing diversity of Sangness-related catchwords suggests that Sangness-related events and activities have constituted an important aspect of Chinese society.

4.3.2 A stronger applicability

The second developmental feature of Sangness-related Chinese catchwords is a stronger applicability. A case in point is the perceived difference between Ge You Slouch, Buddha-like, and lying flat. According to McLuhan (2000), media can, according to the explicitness of information and audience involvement, be divided into cold media and hot media. For the cold media, the information explicitness is low while the audience involvement is high. For the hot media, however, the opposite is true. The distinction between hot media and cold media can be found in the respective use of Ge You Slouch, Buddha-like, and lying flat. The communication of Ge You Slouch can be considered as a hot media as it is often accompanied by the use of explanatory words or stickers. By the high involvement of the audience, the low level of information explicitness of Ge You Slouch is improved. A similar pattern can be found in the communication of Buddha-like, but to a lesser extent. The communication pattern of lying flat must be considered as a cold media because it is seldom supplied with explanatory words or stickers. The high information explicitness and low audience involvement of lying flat suggest that it can be easily understood and communicated by people. Therefore, a gradual shift from a hot media to a cold media can be found in the separate communication of Ge You Slouch, Buddha-like and lying flat. This shift indicates that Chinese Sangness-related catchwords are gradually becoming more applicable.