敬自己一杯jìng zì jǐ yì bēi

敬 is the word for a respectful toast. At a Chinese dinner you usually toast the older or more important people at the table. The meme turns the toast around: the person you thank is you.

The cup does not need to hold alcohol. People raise tea, milk tea, water or an empty cup. A common form is 第一杯敬自己, “the first cup goes to me”, often followed by more cups, one for each hard stretch of life.

By late 2025 the format was everywhere, and it drew criticism. Some people called it 消费痛苦, “cashing in on pain”, and said the videos had become a formula.

People still use the line for small wins, often as a joke: a finished report, an early alarm, a long commute.

The trend grew on short-video apps in September 2025. People faced the camera, told a hard moment of their life, sometimes as a joke, and drank to themselves.

A Beijing Youth Daily report from October 2025 names one creator’s video, 敬自己三杯, “three toasts to myself”, as the one that started it. In it he toasts his hard years after university, from heavy manual work to abuse online.

The national language monitoring center put 敬自己一杯 on its list of the ten top internet phrases of 2025.