主理人zhǔ lǐ rén

Curator (the trendy shop owner)

wǒ shì zhè jiā diàn de zhǔ lǐ rén.我是这家店的主理人。I’m the curator of this shop.

主理人 is the title owners of small trendy shops give themselves: cafés, bars, bakeries, clothing brands. Online it is now mostly a joke about owners who act cool and ignore their customers.

Took off: 2024
Started in: Streetwear and café culture
Today: Current

What it means

Word for word it is “the person who runs things”. It sounds grander than 老板, “boss”, and suggests taste and an idea behind the shop, not only a business.

The joke is a pun: 主理人，主打一个不理人, “a curator’s specialty is ignoring people”. 主打一个 means “all about …”, and 不理人, “to ignore people”, rhymes with 主理人.

How people use it

It is current, in two senses. Shops still use the title in earnest, and people still say 成为自己生活的主理人, “become the curator of your own life”. In comments, though, it usually means a cool, aloof owner with high prices and a cold welcome.

灯灯

新开的面包店怎么样？
xīn kāi de miàn bāo diàn zěn me yàng?
How’s the new bakery?
面包很好吃，就是没人理我
miàn bāo hěn hǎo chī, jiù shì méi rén lǐ wǒ
The bread is great, but nobody paid me any attention.
主理人嘛，主打一个不理人
zhǔ lǐ rén ma, zhǔ dǎ yí gè bù lǐ rén
It has a curator. Ignoring people is their thing.
一个面包三十八块，我也不理他了
yí gè miàn bāo sān shí bā kuài, wǒ yě bù lǐ tā le
Thirty-eight yuan for one loaf. I’m ignoring him back.

More examples

这家咖啡店的主理人一句话都不跟我说。
zhè jiā kā fēi diàn de zhǔ lǐ rén yí jù huà dōu bù gēn wǒ shuō.
The curator of this café didn’t say a word to me.
楼下卖煎饼的大叔也说自己是主理人了。
lóu xià mài jiān bing de dà shū yě shuō zì jǐ shì zhǔ lǐ rén le.
Even the guy who sells jianbing downstairs calls himself a curator now.

Where it came from

The title comes from street culture. The World of Chinese says it is believed to come from Japan’s 1990s street-fashion scene, where a brand or a dance crew had a leader who was “the soul behind it”. Chinese shop owners took it up because it sounded more special than “boss” or “manager”.

It spread to cafés, bars, guesthouses and bakeries, and in December 2024 the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center put 主理人 on its list of the ten internet phrases of the year.

By 2025 the title was also a joke. People said a roadside barbecue stall could call itself 户外烧鸟主理人, “outdoor grilled-skewer curator”, and that the plain word 个体户, “self-employed”, was more honest, according to a June 2025 article on Winshang.

The original. No single image or clip. The word spread through shop signs and posts in which owners call themselves 主理人, and through the jokes about them. The World of Chinese explains both. The World of Chinese