Looking for a success mantra for youth

Diaosi, gaofushuai and baifumei are terms that people usually use to denote different groups of Chinese youth. The terms not only describe the social status of youngsters, but also point to some underlying social problems.

Not surprisingly, the three terms were among the top 10 Internet buzzwords of 2012, according to the list prepared by the National Language Resource Monitoring and Research Center on Network Media of Central China Normal University.

Gaofushuai (tall, rich and handsome guy) and baifumei (white, rich and beautiful girl) derive their literal meanings from Chinese. But diaosi has a special and complex meaning in China's cyberspace. The word diaosi was first used on Baidu tieba, a Chinese bulletin board system (BBS), to describe fans of former Chinese soccer player Li Yi, who were infamous for using dirty language, or people using the Internet as a platform to bemoan their unsatisfactory career and life. But later diaosi came to mean a "loser" who lacked good looks, wealth and social resources.