Internet Slang
by Camilla Fatticcioni
In today’s digital world, hybrid and surreal linguistic creatures are emerging — symbols of a cryptic, generational form of communication shaped by algorithms, censorship, and collective creativity.
The phenomenon of “Brain Rot Animals” appears to have originated in Italy: creatures generated by artificial intelligence and given absurd names on TikTok and Instagram. This is a form of cryptic humor, intelligible only to those immersed in the ecosystem of next-generation social media. It’s an expression of a global trend — the emergence of online linguistic subcultures that form digital dialects, inclusive to insiders and hermetic to outsiders. Online language is increasingly becoming both a generational barrier and a badge of belonging to a digital niche.
In the West, this phenomenon arises from algorithmic engagement mechanisms that reward the bizarre and the surreal. In China, on the other hand, cryptic humor is primarily a strategy for political survival online.
We know well that the first true “encounter” between Western users and the Chinese digital sphere occurred with the TikTok Refugees on Rednote: many American users reported feeling disoriented on the famous Chinese social network. The Chinese web is a world apart, since most of the apps and websites popular in the West are unavailable due to the censorship of the Great Firewall. As a result, the language of Chinese netizens becomes a tool for circumventing government censorship filters, prompting users to invent alternative means of communication — a web language full of codes, metaphors, puns, and memes.
In China, the meme animal par excellence is a type of Bolivian alpaca known as the “Grass Mud Horse.”
The Grass Mud Horse originated as a linguistic prank on Baidu Baike, the Chinese online encyclopedia, in early 2009. Its Chinese name (草泥马, cǎonímǎ) is a homophone for the vulgar phrase “cào nǐ mā” (肏你妈), meaning “fuck your mother.” In China, puns based on homophony are a cornerstone of popular humor, fueling jokes, stand-up comedy, and widely shared memes on social media.
This fictional creature is part of a group of ten “mythical beasts” created specifically to mock Baidu’s anti-vulgarity filters: made-up names that allude to profanity but avoid triggering automatic censorship systems by using different characters and tones.
Political nicknames like “习三连” (Xí sān lián, “Three Moves of Xi”) allow users to refer to Xi Jinping without naming him directly, avoiding filters.
During the anti-lockdown protests of 2022, especially in Shanghai, activists chose the Grass Mud Horse as a symbol of dissent: it appeared on banners and in street performances challenging censorship and demanding freedom of expression. Every new political event or scandal gives rise to a neologism that, to the untrained eye, appears harmless but conceals pointed criticism of the government.
Another example is the “River Crab” (河蟹, héxiè), a homophone for 和谐 (héxié), meaning “harmony” — used sarcastically to denounce state censorship described as “harmonization.” The term “五毛党” (wǔmáodǎng, or “Fifty-Cent Party”) mockingly refers to online commentators allegedly paid 0.5 yuan per post to spread pro-government propaganda.
Political nicknames like “习三连” (Xí sān lián, “Three Moves of Xi”) allow users to refer to Xi Jinping without naming him directly, avoiding filters. The comparison to “Winnie the Pooh” (小熊维尼, xiǎoxióng wéiní) remains a more dangerous meme, as the beloved Disney bear has long been blacklisted by Chinese censorship.
Artificial intelligence has also become a tool for political commentary. Recently, AI-generated memes mocking Americans over Trump’s tariffs have circulated on Chinese social media: a financier sobs while stitching a sock; Batman and Spider-Man assemble machines; President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance sew red hats in a factory.
Chinese netizens haven’t forgotten the penguins from the Australian islands, also affected by tariffs: entire armies of penguins in red “Make America Go Away” hats — all AI-generated — have flooded Rednote in a mass protest against Trump.
These examples show how the web shapes digital dialects, images, and parodies that reinforce a sense of community among insiders while at times creating cultural and generational barriers. Although the image has long been considered a universal communication tool that transcends linguistic barriers, on the web even images take on layered and divergent meanings. In a future where artificial intelligence will generate increasingly sophisticated memes, we may witness an escalation of linguistic codes and the birth of a language comprehensible only online. This new digital language, driven by algorithms and collective creativity, may become a dominant form of expression — one that influences not just daily communication, but the very way we perceive reality.
Camilla Fatticcioni
China scholar and photographer. After graduating in Chinese language from Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Camilla lived in China from 2016 to 2020. In 2017, she began a master’s degree in Art History at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, taking an interest in archaeology and graduating in 2021 with a thesis on the Buddhist iconography of the Mogao caves in Dunhuang. Combining her passion for art and photography with the study of contemporary Chinese society, Camilla collaborates with several magazines and edits the Chinoiserie column for China Files.
