竹知了 (Bamboo Cicada)
zhú zhī liǎo
What it means
A cheap bamboo toy's buzzing sound accidentally matched the audience's 'waa' at a Huawei car launch. The resulting meme — and Huawei's legal response — became July 2026's biggest internet drama.
The deeper story
A ¥3 bamboo toy took on a tech giant — and the internet couldn't stop laughing.
What happened
In December 2023, Huawei executive Richard Yu (余承东) announced the AITO M9 at a launch event, calling it "the best SUV under 10 million yuan." The audience responded with a sharp, synchronized "waa" of amazement. The moment became a running joke in tech circles.
In July 2026, a netizen discovered that the "waa" sound from a traditional bamboo toy — the 竹知了 (bamboo cicada), a ¥3 children's toy that buzzes when spun — sounded exactly like the launch event audience. The comparison went viral.
Within days, thousands of parody videos appeared. The hashtag generated over 3,000 new videos per day. Sales of the bamboo toy increased 6× in a week.
The legal backlash
On July 29, Huawei's legal team filed 171 copyright complaints across Douyin, Kuaishou, and Bilibili, citing reputational damage. The move backfired spectacularly:
By August, Richard Yu appeared at a new launch event where the comments were flooded with cicada emojis.
Related slang
How to use it
Mentioning 竹知了 in July-August 2026 was a way to say: "remember when a ¥3 toy defeated a trillion-dollar company?" It's a shorthand for an unexpected David vs. Goliath story.
Related words
牛来 (Here Comes the Cow)
92niú lái
A two-person hand-made animated film that sold only ¥7,169 in tickets over nine days, then went viral for being hilariously bad — and became August 2026's biggest nationwide inside joke.
爸了个根的 (Dad's a Root)
77bà le gè gēn de
A catchphrase from a gender-swapped parody short drama 'Rebirth: The Way of Motherhood.' It's a substitute for vulgar swearing — sounds intense but is technically clean.
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.
我最讨厌的就是事后道歉 (I Hate Post-Event Apologies)
83wǒ zuì tǎo yàn de jiù shì shì hòu dào qiàn
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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.