内卷
nèi juǎn
Involution — excessive, often pointless competition where everyone works harder but nobody gains more.
Origin
Originally an anthropological term, it went viral in 2020 when photos of Tsinghua students studying on laptops while biking circulated online.
Examples
The tech industry in China is so 内卷 — everyone works 996 just to keep up.
现在考研太内卷了。(The graduate school entrance exam is so involuted now.)
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.
打工人
dǎ gōng rén
Working people / wage slaves — a self-deprecating term workers use to describe themselves.