打工人
dǎ gōng rén
Working people / wage slaves — a self-deprecating term workers use to describe themselves.
Origin
Went viral in late 2020 through motivational-yet-ironic morning greetings shared among office workers on social media.
Examples
Good morning, 打工人! Time to make money for the boss.
打工人打工魂，打工都是人上人。(Workers have a worker's soul, workers are the best of people.)
Related terms
天台见
tiān tái jiàn
"See you on the roof" — gallows humor for having lost catastrophic money, usually on football bets or the stock market. The unspoken second half is that the rooftop is where you'd go to jump, so the phrase means roughly "I'm ruined" said with a laugh.
关灯吃面
guān dēng chī miàn
"Eating noodles with the lights off" — the standard way to say you took a bad loss in the market. Broader than a stock term now: any quiet, undramatic private misery.
草台班子
cǎo tái bān zi
Literally a 'straw-stage troupe' — any operation that looks official but is actually disorganized, unprofessional, and improvised; the viral extended form 'the whole world is one giant clown show' applies that to everything.
内卷
nèi juǎn
Involution — excessive, often pointless competition where everyone works harder but nobody gains more.