Chinese social media sounds: Wheezing laugh, derpy puzzlement. Why?

February 8, 2023 10:34 AM

I hear these sounds on Chinese social media a lot. I don’t hear them anywhere else. What more can you tell me about them? When did they start to appear and why? Are they regional or generational? Coastal cities, the capital, certain provinces, Gen Z, Boomers, influencers, who is likely to favor them? Do other countries have similar favored sounds?
posted by Roy Batty to Society & Culture (6 answers total)

FWIW, the wheezing laugh is very popular on American Tik Tok.

And, I don't know if this is the sound you mean, but there is a Chinese expression of puzzlement, in the language, that sounds kind of like "ehhh?" . It's not exactly a word, but it's somewhat similar to an English "hmm". So the puzzled sound you are referring to may be that.
posted by bearette at 10:48 AM on February 8, 2023

I grew up speaking Chinese and I have never noticed these, so it's very possible you are picking out those utterances that are a normal part of Chinese language.
posted by advicepig at 11:48 AM on February 8, 2023

Maybe some examples would help? I hear various sounds of bafflement/puzzlement/curiosity in Chinese and Japanese movies and videogames for the last twenty years or so, that I don't really hear much in US English. Similar to the 'ehh?' sound described above.

But idk what 'derpy' means in this case. I usually hear that as an insult in the vein of stupidity, and wouldn't use it to describe unaffected non-verbal utterances from outside my home culture, but I'm not sure if maybe these people are putting on a derpy act or something.
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:48 PM on February 8, 2023

Best answer: I'm afraid I know exactly what this is about, my mainland-Chinese partner (from the coast, down near Hainan Island) is obsessed with video-streams served to her by weChat which I believe are similar to what people post to Tik-Tok. It seems the soundtrack of short videos can be easily augmented with sounds, yet the pallet of available noises seem only to include about six of them. Yes, the wheezing laugh, and the derpy puzzlement (I think of as similar to but more violent than Homer Simpson's "D'uh!"). I'm told by my step-son that this limitation is part of the charm of this experience (but the similarity to the canned laughter of 1950s television bores me to tears and drives me away).
posted by Rash at 3:18 PM on February 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Here's an example (not great) of the noises I was curious about:
https://www.tiktok.com/@14001824j2t/video/7187396054139063557

The laugh at about 0:12 and the derpy "huhh?" sound at 0:15.

@Rash, that's a good insight, thanks. It definitely has the air of canned sound effects from early broadcast TV. I think Homer's exclamation is more violent though.
posted by Roy Batty at 4:16 PM on February 8, 2023

That one is actually a different sound from the derpy "huh" and I didn't hear it in your TikTok sample but the others are the same I hear on weChat (and I imagine it's on TikTok too).
posted by Rash at 7:02 PM on February 8, 2023