内卷

Origin: a philosophy term turned viral

“内卷” comes from involution, a term borrowed from anthropology and genetics for a system that grows more complex without actually producing progress. Chinese netizens adopted it to describe a grim everyday experience: everyone competes so hard that the benchmark itself rises, making the extra effort pointless for everyone.

What it feels like in practice

The classic example is overtime culture. One person stays late, so the next does to stay visible, and soon staying late is the norm — the "reward" for working harder is simply that the bar moves up. The same logic runs through:

• Schooling — students do more test prep, and cutoffs only rise.
• Salary bidding — your raise is someone else's baseline complaint.
• Side hustles — everyone is "grinding," and nobody feels ahead.

How it connects to other words

• 躺平 (“lying flat”) is the famous rebellion against 内卷: opt out of the whole contest.
• 牛马 is the self-mocking word for the people forced to keep running.

Is it always negative?

Mostly, but not entirely. People also joke about "良性内卷" (healthy or productive competition) when everyone's effort creates real progress. In everyday speech, though, saying something is "太卷了" almost always means: this is exhausting and pointless.

A quick rule of thumb: if you hear 卷 as a verb ("今天又卷了一晚上"), someone is complaining about pressure. If you hear 内卷 itself, someone is describing the system — and usually not warmly.