Emotional damage
Emotional damage
Emotional damage！Emotional damage!
“Emotional damage” is what you say, in English, right after someone lands a hurtful joke or a hard truth. It comes from a 2021 YouTube skit by the Chinese-Irish comedian Steven He, and Chinese users picked it up on Bilibili.
- Took off
- 2022
- Started in
- A YouTube comedy skit
- Today
- Fading
What it means
It treats feelings like health points in a video game. A friend says your new haircut looks like a mushroom, and you answer “Emotional damage!”, as if a damage number had just popped up.
In Chinese it sits next to 破防, “my defenses are broken”. Bilibili videos call Steven He 破防哥, “Brother Broken Defenses”. People write the English words and do not translate them.
How people use it
It is fading but still known, mostly among students and gamers. You can say it about yourself after a friend’s blunt comment, or about a friend after you tease them.
我新剪的头发怎么样？
How’s my new haircut?
有点像蘑菇
Looks a bit like a mushroom.Emotional damage！
Emotional damage!开玩笑的，很好看
Just kidding. It looks great.
More examples
你说我胖了？emotional damage！
You’re saying I gained weight? Emotional damage!
期末成绩出来了，emotional damage。
Final grades are out. Emotional damage.
Where it came from
Steven He posted the skit “When ‘Asian’ Is a Difficulty Mode” on YouTube on September 21, 2021. It imagines a video game with a difficulty level above Hard. When an aunt in the game calls the hero fat, the hero drops dead and Steven He yells “Emotional damage!”, according to Know Your Meme.
From December 2021 the clip spread on TikTok, added to the end of videos where someone gets roasted. On Bilibili, an explainer by the channel 梗指南, posted in January 2022, has more than three million views. In April 2023 Steven He posted a video on his own Bilibili account to say he had arrived there.
The original. A comedy sketch on YouTube about a video game with an “Asian” difficulty level, where an aunt’s insult knocks out the hero. Know Your Meme’s page covers the clip and how it spread. Know Your Meme
Related memes
Sources
- Know Your Meme: Emotional Damage (knowyourmeme.com)
- Bilibili: 梗指南 explains the meme, January 2022 (in Chinese) (bilibili.com)
- Bilibili: Steven He arrives on Bilibili, April 2023 (in Chinese) (bilibili.com)
Checked November 2026. The picture at the top is our own drawing of 灯灯. It is not the original meme image.
Ten Chinese memes
One Chinese internet meme every three days for a month: where it came from, what it means and how to use it.
