自己吓自己zì jǐ xià zì jǐ

It is an everyday phrase. You jump at a noise, see that nothing is there, and tell yourself 自己吓自己. You can also say it to a friend who worries too much.

The meme is in the delivery: slow and breathy, with the tones bent up and down, the way the heroine says it in the film.

It peaked in December 2024 and is fading. You still hear the sleepy voice when someone panics over nothing. Said normally, the phrase is just everyday Chinese.

The film 美人鱼的夏天, “The Mermaid’s Summer”, opened in cinemas on November 22, 2024. Gcores reports that its director and art director drew it over seven years.

In the scene, the mermaid heroine hums as she walks by a river, starts at a sudden gust of wind, looks around, smooths her hair and says the line. A moment later a man in black pushes her into the water.

Viewers criticized the drawing and the voice acting, Gcores wrote. A comedy creator posted an imitation of the scene on November 26, Shenzhen News reported, and versions in many dialects and languages followed.

By December 2024, the related tags had more than 3 billion views on Douyin, Xiaohongshu and Bilibili, Shenzhen News reported. Douyin put it on its list of the memes of 2024.