social media

Help Me Cut the Price

On the shopping platform Pinduoduo, kan yi dao, “give it one cut,” works through friends. The Paper explained in 2022: a user chooses a product and invites friends to help, and if they cut the price to zero within 24 hours, the user can claim the product free.

In 2018, the news site Jiemian ran the headline: “I blocked a friend who asked me to help cut a price on Pinduoduo.” The friend “had added you back on purpose, just so that you would cut the price for him.” In 2022, the tech site ifanr wrote that “cutting once” had become a popular game, “and also a touchstone of friendship.”

Making a Friend

On April 1, 2020, the entrepreneur Luo Yonghao held his first live-stream sale on Douyin. The stream was billed with the words: “This stream basically makes no money. We are making a friend” (jiao ge pengyou). Sales passed 110 million yuan, and more than 48 million people watched.

His live-stream business is run by a company called Beijing Jiao Ge Pengyou Digital Technology.

A Colorful Black

A post on the marketing site Digitaling retells a designers’ joke about a client who asks for “a colorful black” (wucai banlan de hei), and then for “a slightly brighter black.” The client in the joke is jiafang baba, Party A daddy. The post says that Party A daddy “seems to have a mysterious obsession with the variety of black.”

The Super App

WeChat started in January 2011 as a messaging app. It now includes WeChat Pay, official accounts, mini programs and the short video platform Channels. Chinese Wikipedia calls it a super app, because users can handle daily life and work through its mini programs without downloading other apps.

Mini programs were launched on January 9, 2017. In October 2024, they had 949 million users. Life services, shopping and finance each had more than 860 million monthly active users.

WeChat’s First Year

WeChat 1.0 came out on January 21, 2011, with only four functions. By May it had added voice messages, and in August “People Nearby.” By the end of 2011, it had more than 50 million users. In March 2012, it passed 100 million.

Version 4.0 came out in April 2012. One source dates it to May. Video calls followed in August 2012, and payment in August 2013.

From OICQ to QQ

On February 10, 1999, Tencent launched its first instant messenger. It was called OICQ, short for Open ICQ, after the existing messenger ICQ. It took over the functions of ICQ and added skins, user pictures and emoticons.

In 1999, AOL, which owned ICQ, complained that the domain names oicq.com and oicq.net infringed its rights. An arbitration panel gave the domains to AOL in March 2000. In April, Tencent renamed its program Tencent QQ. In June 2000, a mobile version was built into SIM Toolkit cards for phones.

Formalism at the Fingertips

In March 2019, the General Office of the Central Committee issued a notice on reducing burdens at the grassroots. Provinces including Fujian, Zhejiang and Hebei then moved against zhijian shang de xingshi zhuyi, “formalism at the fingertips.” Officials were to be freed from too many WeChat and QQ work groups and government apps.

The discipline chief of Enshi prefecture in Hubei reported: “We merged or dissolved nearly 5,000 WeChat and QQ groups that had been set up by several offices or twice over. Grassroots officials are no longer ‘kidnapped’ by their phones.”

Let’s Add Each Other on WeChat

In 2018, the business site 36Kr wrote that, with the spread of WeChat, “Let’s add each other on WeChat” did more to close the distance between business people than exchanging paper business cards. A teacher of business etiquette gave advice on who should scan whose QR code. Many people, the site noted, still sent a photo of their card after adding a contact.

Visible for Three Days

On WeChat, users can set their Moments so that others see only the posts of the last three days. At the WeChat Open Class in January 2019, Zhang Xiaolong, the head of WeChat, said: “More than 100 million people have set their Moments to be visible for three days.”

High EQ, Low EQ

In early 2021, a meme format called “high EQ versus low EQ” (高情商 VS 低情商) was popular on the Chinese internet. Each meme takes a blunt remark that is unpleasant to hear and rewrites it in words that make the listener feel good.

In January 2021, the tech site ifanr wrote that everyone knows the “high EQ” versions are not really high EQ. It said the format could be called “an advanced version of sarcasm” (阴阳怪气的进阶版本).

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