活人感huó rén gǎn

Feeling like a real person

hǎo yǒu huó rén gǎn!好有活人感！So real!

活人感 means “the sense of a living person”: the feel of a real human with moods and flaws behind a post, a video or a public figure, not a polished image.

Took off: 2024
Started in: Social media
Today: Current

What it means

活 is “alive”, 人 is “person” and 感 is “sense” or “feel”, the same 感 as in 松弛感, “a sense of ease”.

The word praises what is not polished: a photo with no filter, a voice message with pauses, a video that admits you did nothing today. Its opposite is a perfect, packaged image, or content that reads as if a machine made it.

How people use it

It is a compliment. A person, a brand account or a video that feels spontaneous is 很有活人感.

Some writers see a new problem: once people want the label, some start to act out being real. Huxiu’s article ends on that point.

灯灯

你看这个博主，视频都不剪
nǐ kàn zhè gè bó zhǔ, shì pín dōu bù jiǎn
Look at this vlogger. She doesn’t even edit her videos.
还说自己今天什么都没干
hái shuō zì jǐ jīn tiān shén me dōu méi gàn
And she says she did nothing today.
好有活人感，我关注了
hǎo yǒu huó rén gǎn, wǒ guān zhù le
She feels so real. I followed her.
我也是
wǒ yě shì
Me too.

More examples

他的视频没怎么剪，很有活人感。
tā de shì pín méi zěn me jiǎn, hěn yǒu huó rén gǎn.
His videos are barely edited. They feel like a real person made them.
这个品牌的账号回评论很有活人感。
zhè gè pǐn pái de zhàng hào huí píng lùn hěn yǒu huó rén gǎn.
This brand’s account answers comments like a real person.
我喜欢有活人感的朋友圈。
wǒ xǐ huan yǒu huó rén gǎn de péng you quān.
I like WeChat Moments posts that feel real.

Where it came from

Huxiu says the word was born on social media. Viewers used it in 弹幕, bullet comments, to praise reality-show guests who acted like themselves, and commenters used it for posts close to everyday life. By November 2024, the editors of Jiemian’s culture desk discussed it as a word of the moment.

In December 2025, 咬文嚼字 put 活人感 on its list of the ten most popular phrases of the year. Beijing Daily’s report on the list linked it to heavily edited photos and to AI that imitates people better and better.

The original. There is no image; the meme is a word. Beijing Daily reported the 2025 list with the magazine’s notes. Beijing Daily (in Chinese)