Editor’s Note: The Word of the Week comes from China Digital Space’s Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and frequently encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China’s online “resistance discourse,” used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness. If you are interested in participating in this project by submitting and/or translating terms, please contact the CDT editors at CDT [at] chinadigitaltimes [dot] net.
An angry youth smashes a Japanese computer while the onlooking Chinese computer snickers, “You don’t look ugly, you look patriotic!”
“Shit youth” (粪青) is homophonous with “angry youth” (愤青), young people who are extremely nationalistic and local. “Angry youth” often whip up anti-Japanese and anti-Western fervor; fenqing founded the website Anti-CNN in response to CNN’s coverage of the 2008 Tibet riots. Fenqing cause the Chinese government consierable anxiety, as they may organize and resist the control of the authorities. The derogatory shit youth implies that their fervor is irrational and even dangerous.
