吃瓜 chī guā
Watching a scandal from the side.
The short answer
OnlineNow commonChecked November 2026
Chigua means “eating melon”: you follow a scandal or an online fight as a spectator, and you take no part. The full form is 吃瓜群众, “the melon-eating crowd”.
In a chat
- 里昂 Leon
你看到那个明星的新闻了吗？
Did you see the news about that celebrity?
- 琦琦 Qiqi
看到了！评论区都吵起来了。
Yes! The comments turned into a fight.
- 里昂 Leon
我不说话，默默吃瓜。
I'm not saying anything. I'm just watching.
- 琦琦 Qiqi
我也是，坐等新瓜。
Same. Waiting for the next scandal.
In the Dengdeng app, Dengdeng and his friends text you in Chinese every day, at your level.
How to reply
有瓜吗？快说说！
Any gossip? Tell me!
我也来吃瓜。
I'm here to watch too.
When not to use it
- Do not use it about a friend's real trouble. It says you enjoy their problem.
- In news about an accident or a death, the word sounds cold.
What it means
In this slang, a 瓜 (melon) is a piece of gossip or a scandal. To 吃瓜 is to follow it as a spectator: you read every post, but you have no stake in it and you say nothing.
吃瓜群众 are the people who do this. People use the phrase to mock themselves or each other.
How people use it
瓜 can stand alone: 有瓜 (there is gossip), 大瓜 (a big scandal). When a scandal breaks, people say 先吃个瓜 (“let me just watch for now”).
The phrase also keeps you out of a fight: 我只是吃瓜的 means “I'm only watching”.
Where it comes from
The magazine 咬文嚼字 put 吃瓜群众 on its list of the ten top expressions of 2016. Its note says that in 2016, people started to call ordinary users who watch but do not post “吃瓜群众”, and that people use it to mock themselves and each other.
The Paper's report on the same list says the phrase first meant forum users who only watched a thread, and later all onlookers who stay silent.
In use
2 examples我们都是吃瓜群众，不知道真相。
We're all just onlookers. We don't know the truth.
网上又有大瓜了，大家都在吃瓜。
There's a big scandal online again, and everyone is watching.
The characters
Explore individuallyIndividual character meanings do not always explain the meaning of the whole word.
Sources
This guide is original Dengdeng editorial content, offered under CC BY-SA 4.0. The linked dictionary entries adapt CC-CEDICT under the same license.