土味情话tǔ wèi qíng huà

Cheesy pickup lines

wǒ de quē diǎn shì quē diǎn nǐ.我的缺点是缺点你。My only flaw is that I lack you.

土味情话 are cheesy pickup lines: love lines so corny that they are funny. Most of them set you up with a question and end on a pun.

Took off: 2018
Started in: An idol show
Today: Now everyday Chinese

What it means

土味 means “earthy, rustic”. Online it describes anything unfashionable and a little tacky. 情话 are “words of love”.

灯灯’s line plays on 缺点, “flaw”. Read another way, 缺点你 means “short of a little you”.

How people use it

People still trade them as a joke between friends or partners. Saying one with a straight face is part of the fun.

The China News Service gave this one as an example: 我对你的爱，就像拖拉机上山轰轰烈烈, “my love for you is like a tractor going up a hill: loud and grand”.

里昂

你知道你和星星有什么区别吗？
nǐ zhī dao nǐ hé xīng xing yǒu shén me qū bié ma?
Do you know the difference between you and the stars?
又来土味情话？
yòu lái tǔ wèi qíng huà?
Another cheesy line?
星星在天上，你在我心里
xīng xing zài tiān shang, nǐ zài wǒ xīn lǐ
The stars are in the sky. You’re in my heart.
好土，不过我喜欢
hǎo tǔ, bú guò wǒ xǐ huan
So cheesy. I love it, though.

More examples

你累不累？你在我脑子里跑了一整天。
nǐ lèi bu lèi? nǐ zài wǒ nǎo zi lǐ pǎo le yì zhěng tiān.
Aren’t you tired? You’ve been running through my mind all day.
你今天有点怪，怪好看的。
nǐ jīn tiān yǒu diǎn guài, guài hǎo kàn de.
You’re a bit strange today. Strangely good-looking.

Where it came from

The lines are older than the name, and nobody has traced who wrote the first ones. In 2017, Weibo accounts that reposted rustic videos from Kuaishou made 土味 a popular word, according to 36Kr.

In early 2018 the idol talent show 偶像练习生 (Idol Producer) put out bonus clips of its contestants trading 土味情话, and the lines became a craze. Sixth Tone dates it to April 2018.

That December the national language monitoring center put 土味情话 eighth on its list of the internet words of the year.

浙江卫视【奔跑吧】官方频道, 2018. Watch on YouTube