老铁lǎo tiě

Buddy, bro

lǎo tiě, méi máo bìng!老铁，没毛病！All good, bro!

老铁 means “buddy” or “bro”: a close friend you can count on. It comes from the speech of China’s northeast and spread through live streams in 2017.

Took off: 2017
Started in: Kuaishou live streams
Today: Now everyday Chinese

What it means

老 is a friendly prefix, and 铁 is “iron”. A 铁哥们 is a friend as solid as iron, and 老铁 is the same idea in northeastern speech.

On live streams it is how a host talks to the viewers: 各位老铁, “buddies, all of you”.

How people use it

老铁 is still common in streams and comments, and in northern speech. It sounds friendly and a bit rough, so use it with friends, not with your boss.

老铁没毛病, “no problem, bro”, means “all good” or “you’re right”.

亮亮

老铁，帮我搬个家？
lǎo tiě, bāng wǒ bān gè jiā?
Bro, can you help me move?
没问题，几点？
méi wèn tí, jǐ diǎn?
No problem. What time?
周六早上九点，搬完请你吃烤肉
zhōu liù zǎo shang jiǔ diǎn, bān wán qǐng nǐ chī kǎo ròu
Saturday at nine. Barbecue’s on me after.
老铁没毛病！
lǎo tiě méi máo bìng!
All good, bro!

More examples

老铁，周末一起吃火锅吗？
lǎo tiě, zhōu mò yì qǐ chī huǒ guō ma?
Bro, hot pot this weekend?
考试又没过，扎心了，老铁。
kǎo shì yòu méi guò, zhā xīn le, lǎo tiě.
Failed the exam again. That stings, buddy.

Where it came from

The word is old northeastern speech. It went national through comments on Kuaishou, the short-video and live-stream app, in 2017. The phrase that spread it was 扎心了，老铁, “that stings, buddy”, which people post when something hits a nerve.

In December 2017 the national language monitoring center put 扎心了，老铁 on its list of internet words of the year. A buzzword list reported by Huanqiu that month put it first.

The same streams spread 双击666, “double-tap, 666”: on Kuaishou a double tap on the screen is a like, and 666 means “awesome”.

The original. No single clip started it. On Kuaishou live streams, hosts greet the viewers as 老铁, and the viewers answer in the scrolling comments. Huanqiu’s 2017 article describes the phrases. Huanqiu (in Chinese)