躺平tǎng píng

Lying flat

jīn tiān tǎng píng.今天躺平。Lying flat today.

躺平, “lying flat”, means stepping out of the race: no overtime, no chase for a bigger flat or a better title, just a cheap, quiet life. In everyday chat it also means a lazy day of doing nothing.

Took off: 2021
Started in: Baidu Tieba
Today: Now everyday Chinese

What it means

The picture is literal: you lie down and stop trying to get up. It is the answer to 内卷, the competition that never pays off.

Among friends it is often small: 今天躺平 means “I’m doing nothing today”. Used about life choices, it is a real decision to want less.

How people use it

躺平 is now ordinary Chinese, and the lazy-day meaning is the most common in chats. In 2022, 摆烂 took over part of the same space, with a more hopeless tone.

亮亮

明天放假，有什么计划？
míng tiān fàng jià, yǒu shén me jì huà?
Day off tomorrow. Any plans?
没有，我决定躺平一天
méi yǒu, wǒ jué dìng tǎng píng yì tiān
Nope. I’ve decided to lie flat for a day.
我也是，手机都不想看
wǒ yě shì, shǒu jī dōu bù xiǎng kàn
Me too. I don’t even want to look at my phone.
那我们一起躺平吧
nà wǒ men yì qǐ tǎng píng ba
Then let’s lie flat together.

More examples

这个周末我哪里也不去，就想躺平。
zhè gè zhōu mò wǒ nǎ li yě bú qù, jiù xiǎng tǎng píng.
This weekend I’m going nowhere. I just want to lie around.
工作太累了，我想躺平一段时间。
gōng zuò tài lèi le, wǒ xiǎng tǎng píng yí duàn shí jiān.
Work is exhausting. I want to take it easy for a while.

For the word itself and how to reply to it, see 躺平 in the slang dictionary.

Where it came from

The word had appeared in small online groups before, but it took off after a post on Baidu Tieba on 17 April 2021 titled 躺平即是正义, “lying flat is justice”. The writer said he had stopped working full time, lived on very little and felt free.

The post spread fast in May and June 2021. 咬文嚼字 put 躺平 on its list of the ten most popular phrases of 2021, and the national language monitoring center put it on its internet list for the same year.

The original. The original is a text post, not an image: a forum thread titled 躺平即是正义. Wikipedia’s article describes it. Tang ping on Wikipedia