China releases 10 annual Internet slang phrases on December 7, 2021. Photo: VCG

Two buzz words "The Age of Awakening" and "The strong country has me" were selected as China's top 10 annual internet slang phrases in 2021, reflecting the aspiration, backbone and strength of Chinese youth to invigorate the Chinese nation.

Unveiled by China's National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center on Monday, the 10 representative cyber slang phrases are "the Age of Awakening," "YYDS(eternal God)," "double reduction," "overwhelm," "metaverse," "Brilliant with a capital B," "lie down," "It's more of an insult than injury," "I didn't get it but was just in awe," and "The strong country has me."

These cyber slangs were selected from a large cyber corpus including nearly 1100 million bullet chats and 350,000 forum posts through intelligent information processing technologies and experts' evaluation in the field. 

Some reflect a new phenomenon topic being discussed widely in the Chinese society, while others are used by Chinese youths to express their feelings and emotions.

For example, "The Age of Awakening" is a 2021 hit red drama from the Chinese mainland, narrates the story of how the CPC was founded in 1921 and why the founding fathers of the CPC had to establish such a Party in China, has been selected as a topic for essay in the Chinese national college entrance examinations. 

"Please rest assured, my Party, the strong country has me," young people across China shouted loudly during this year's celebration to mark the centennial of the founding of the CPC.

To reduce the burden of homework and after-school tutoring for students from primary schools to senior high school, China released the "double reduction" policy in April. The policy also wishes to ease the pressure of anxious Chinese parents who drown their children in schoolwork for the highly competitive college entrance exams.

The idea of low material desire, low consumption and refusing to work, marry and have children, dubbed as a "lying down" lifestyle, recently struck a chord with many young Chinese, who are eager to take pause to breathe in this fast-paced and highly-competitive society. The word "lying down" has gone viral at home and abroad with many mainstream Western media depicting the new generation. However, it is the same generation who vow "We are working to revitalize the Chinese nation" to build a bright future for the country and its people.

The new concept of the "Metaverse" has become one of the trendiest buzzwords in Chinese society, although the jargon has almost instantly bewildered Chinese people. Despite that many say "I didn't get it but was just in awe." "Metaverse" is also turning out to be a shortcut for inflated commercial success for some.

Chinese youths say"eternal God"which resembles GOAT (Greatest of All Time) in English or use "Brilliant with a capital B" to praise their idols or things they are fond of. They use the word "overwhelm" not only to mean to destroy someone's defense in a digital game, but also that they are shocked or touched by certain information or news. They joke that "It's more of an insult than injury" to express their embarrassment.

Besides the top 10 Internet slang phrases, China will also release from the Chinese language the annual characters and words, top 10 buzzwords and top 10 new words to describe China and the world during the past year. 

The event has been held since 2006, aiming at encouraging Chinese people to record their life with language and to describe social changes from Chinese perspective.

Global Times