awsl

I’m dying (of cuteness)

awsl！I’m dead!

awsl is short for 啊我死了, “ah, I’m dead”. People type it when something is so cute, so pretty or so sweet that they “die”.

Took off: 2019
Started in: Bilibili bullet comments
Today: Fading

What it means

The letters are the pinyin initials of ā wǒ sǐ le. It works like “I can’t, I’m dead” in English: a reaction to a kitten video, an idol photo or a sweet couple.

It is a written reaction. You type it alone or after a short comment.

How people use it

awsl is still understood, mostly on Bilibili and Weibo and under cute videos. Its peak was 2019.

琦琦

快看，我家猫刚学会握手
kuài kàn, wǒ jiā māo gāng xué huì wò shǒu
Look, my cat just learned to shake hands.
太可爱了吧，awsl
tài kě ài le ba, awsl
Way too cute. I’m dead.
我再发个视频
wǒ zài fā gè shì pín
I’ll send a video too.
awsl awsl，周末我去你家看它
awsl awsl, zhōu mò wǒ qù nǐ jiā kàn tā
I’m dead, I’m dead. I’m coming over this weekend to see it.

More examples

这只小猫太可爱了，awsl！
zhè zhī xiǎo māo tài kě ài le, awsl!
This kitten is too cute. I’m dead!
他们俩也太甜了吧，awsl。
tā men liǎ yě tài tián le ba, awsl.
Those two are way too sweet. I can’t.

Where it came from

Jiemian says the first use cannot be traced, and that it took off on Bilibili among fans of virtual YouTubers. 36Kr links it to the fans of Shirakami Fubuki, a Japanese virtual streamer.

In December 2019 Bilibili named AWSL its bullet comment of the year. 36Kr counts 3,233,620 uses among the 1.4 billion 弹幕 sent on the site that year.

语言文字周报 left awsl off its own list of 2019. It said the list does not usually take pinyin abbreviations.