柠檬精níng méng jīng

Lemon spirit (jealous)

wǒ suān le.我酸了。I’m jealous.

柠檬精, “lemon spirit”, is someone who turns sour with envy at other people’s luck. Most people use it about themselves: 我酸了, “I’ve gone sour”, means “I’m jealous”.

Took off: 2019
Started in: Weibo
Today: Now everyday Chinese

What it means

In Chinese, 酸, “sour”, has long described jealousy, the way English talks about sour grapes. The meme turns the feeling into a creature, the 精, or spirit, of a lemon, like the spirits in old stories.

It is mostly playful. Writing 我是柠檬精 under a friend’s holiday photos is a compliment.

How people use it

People still say 我酸了 often. 柠檬精 is less common than in 2019, but everyone knows it. Calling another person a 柠檬精 in an argument is a real dig: you are saying their criticism is only envy.

More examples

看到你的新房子，我酸了。
kàn dào nǐ de xīn fáng zi, wǒ suān le.
Seeing your new apartment, I’m jealous.
别当柠檬精了，你也很棒！
bié dāng níng méng jīng le, nǐ yě hěn bàng!
Stop being a lemon. You’re great too!

Where it came from

Lemons for envy were already around online in 2018, and the phrase spread on Weibo in early 2019. Reports point to a viral post that sorted internet users into types, with the lemon spirit next to the 真香 crowd, but the first post is not certain.

By the end of the year it was everywhere, and 咬文嚼字 put 柠檬精 on its list of the ten most popular phrases of 2019.

A crying cat with a lemon in its mouth and a plate full of lemons in front of it. — The original meme image. A crying-cat photo edited with lemon emoji, a common 柠檬精 sticker; maker unknown. Source

Sources

The Paper: the ten phrases of 2019 (in Chinese) (thepaper.cn)
fx361 on the lemon meme (in Chinese) (m.fx361.com)

Checked November 2026. The picture at the top is our own drawing of 灯灯. The original meme image belongs to its owner and is shown to explain the meme. To ask us to remove it, write to legal@dengdeng.app.