有钱任性yǒu qián rèn xìng

Rich, so why not

yǒu qián jiù shì rèn xìng.有钱就是任性。Rich, so why not.

有钱任性 means “I have money, so I do as I please”. It mocks spending that makes no sense, and people say it about themselves after a small splurge.

Took off: 2014
Started in: A news story
Today: Now everyday Chinese

What it means

任性 means “willful”: doing what you want without thinking it through. The full form is 有钱就是任性, “having money means being willful”.

Said about a rich person, it is a dig at showing off. Said about yourself, it is a joke: you bought the expensive coffee, and you know it.

How people use it

It is still common, mostly as a joke about yourself or a friend. It also works for things that cost too much for what they do: a phone case that costs more than the phone, a cat with its own room.

灯灯

我给猫买了一个两千块的猫爬架
wǒ gěi māo mǎi le yí gè liǎng qiān kuài de māo pá jià
I bought my cat a 2,000-yuan cat tree.
两千？有钱任性啊
liǎng qiān? yǒu qián rèn xìng a
Two thousand? Rich, so why not, huh?
它一次都没上去过
tā yí cì dōu méi shàng qu guo
It hasn’t climbed it even once.
哈哈哈，猫也任性
hā hā hā, māo yě rèn xìng
Hahaha, the cat does what it wants too.

More examples

他一口气买了五双鞋，有钱任性。
tā yì kǒu qì mǎi le wǔ shuāng xié, yǒu qián rèn xìng.
He bought five pairs of shoes in one go. Rich, so why not.
打车去两百米外的咖啡店？有钱就是任性！
dǎ chē qù liǎng bǎi mǐ wài de kā fēi diàn? yǒu qián jiù shì rèn xìng!
A taxi to a café 200 meters away? Must be nice to be rich!

Where it came from

It comes from a 2014 news story. A man bought a health product online for 1,760 yuan, then got calls telling him to buy more medicine to make it work. Over four months he sent the callers about 540,000 yuan.

Reports said he saw it was a scam after about 70,000 yuan, but kept paying because he wanted to see how much they would take. Commenters joked: 有钱就是任性.

A December 2014 list of the top ten internet phrases put it second. In 2015, 咬文嚼字 put 任性 on its list of the words of the year.