搞抽象
gǎo chōu xiànglit. “to do abstract”
What it means
To deliberately act in a nonsensical, absurd, or unhinged way for comedic effect — the umbrella term for Chinese internet absurdism. Buying a ticket to a terrible movie because it's terrible? That's 搞抽象.
In real conversation
你太抽象了，我完全跟不上你的脑回路。
Said with admiration, not frustration.
今天又在群里搞抽象，发了三十个表情包。
搞抽象 as group chat chaos.
这部电影烂到值得搞抽象去看。
The 牛来 phenomenon: watching a bad film as performance art.
The deeper story
From gaming insult to mainstream comedy
抽象 started around 2015 as the in-joke of a notorious group of Douyu game streamers whose crude, chaotic broadcasts their fans called 抽象文化 ("abstract culture"). The studio was banned in 2017 and the slang went underground.
By 2024 it had been sanded down into a mainstream verb. Xiaohongshu (RedNote) named 抽象 its keyword of the year that December, defining it as "using nonsense to season daily life."
Today, 搞抽象 covers:
The spectrum of abstract
搞抽象 has levels:
| Level | What it looks like | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Light | A playful non-sequitur | "今天天气真好，所以我决定当一只猫。" |
| Medium | Deliberately confusing content | A video of someone staring at a wall for 3 minutes |
| Maximum | Full performance art | Buying a cinema ticket to a ¥7,169-grossing film as a joke |
Why it's 2026's defining humor
Three things make 搞抽象 the perfect 2026 word:
How to use it
The highest compliment: "你抽象得很有水平" (your abstract game is high-level).
Related words
大祙子 (Big Mèi)
75dà mèi zi
A typo meme: someone typed 大祙子 (mèi — a rare character meaning 'sock ghost') instead of 大妹子 (mèi — 'younger sister/sis'). The two characters 祙 and 袜 are nearly identical, causing endless confusion.
养砖头 (Raise a Brick)
76yǎng zhuān tóu
A new hobby where young people pick up discarded bricks, spray them with water daily, and wait for moss to grow. It's meditation, gardening, and absurdist humor — all for the price of a brick.
AI水果 (AI Fruit)
79AI shuǐ guǒ
A trend where netizens generated and shared AI images of absurd, impossible fruits — pineapples with legs, watermelon the size of houses — as a collective joke exploring AI's strengths and weaknesses.
咕咕嘎嘎 (Goo Goo Gaa Gaa)
79gū gū gā gā
A nonsense sound that became a universal internet response — the equivalent of going 'uwu' or 'rawr' but with zero meaning and maximum absurdity.
酱板鸭 (Sauce Board Duck)
80jiàng bǎn yā
An AI-generated video where a white fox transforms into a woman who screams 'I'm not a fox — I'm your abandoned sauce board duck!' became a metaphor for unexpected revenge from someone you wronged.
我的刀盾 (My Dao Shield)
76wǒ de dāo dùn
A Chinese netizen's attempt to phonetically transcribe 'What the dog doing?' as 我的刀盾 (wǒ de dāo dùn — 'my blade shield'). It's a perfect example of 空耳 (kōng ěr) — mishearing and rewriting foreign phrases.