Ours is a trend-driven world. Many individuals follow what’s popular and current, whether it be a specific saying, look, cuisine, music, or dancing. And social media apps like TikTok are largely responsible for that.
This week, we have spotted a growing phrase that’s been taking over TikTok and X.
A post on Xiaohongshu (Chinese Instagram) went viral early August after Ukrainian blogger @YourKris shared an emotional photo with her boyfriend on the app with the caption “Bye baby”.
Several days prior, she had posted, “Why he made me sad.”
Users from China used a number of interesting phrases to offer ‘comfort’ to the influencer.
With the words, “The old doesn’t go, the new doesn’t come.”, one reader tried to get the blogger to move on and concentrate on the bright side of possibly meeting a better man soon.
Reminiscent of a hovering mother, another user attempted to persuade her out of crying by saying, “Cry, cry, cry! Just know cry! Luck is gone by u cry.”
But there was one phrase which caught the internet’s attention, and it reads: “You pretty, he ugly, u swan, he frog.”
What does the phrase mean?
The phrase refers to a situation in which one partner is thought to be more attractive (the “swan”) than the other (the “frog”) in a relationship.
It is written this way because it is “Chinglish”, used to describe a mix of Chinese and English that has long been mocked for producing confusing and poor translations. However, in this scenario, it has gained popularity on social media due to its comforting qualities.
More recently, a wide range of users customised the term to refer to anything from the US presidential contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to Lana Del Rey’s rumoured boyfriend.
Here are a few examples of the way the phrase has been used.
