Chinese Internet slang
You might remember it as Chinese internet language
520 for “I love you”; 996 for working nine to nine, six days a week; “river crab”, which sounds like the word for harmony
2000·Early web, before YouTube
The shorthand of the Chinese-language internet: numbers that sound like phrases, initials typed for words, and puns.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- 网络语言
- Spread in
- 2000
- Format
- Phrase
- What it said
- 520 for “I love you”; 996 for working nine to nine, six days a week; “river crab”, which sounds like the word for harmony
- Who or what it shows
- Homophones are sometimes used to get round censorship
- Origin
- No single original
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
Homophone substitution, numeric shorthand and deliberate misspelling used across the Chinese internet — partly play, partly a working method for discussing what moderation removes. One of the largest bodies of internet language outside English, and largely invisible to it.
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
Where it came fromWhat we know
This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. The example shown is one surviving copy and is not claimed as the first.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things