Losers' can flatter themselves in any culture

Like other languages, Mandarin has a long evolutionary history during which it takes on new words. In the past year or so, diaosi, a Chinese Internet term, arrived on the scene. Diao refers a man's sex organ and si means hair. Diaosi can be from all corners of the country. Generally they are from the countryside or from the urban petty bourgeois. Some are science graduates who have found that despite the time and money put into obtaining a degree, the rewards are scant.

Thanks to the Internet, more young Chinese now quite like the idea of self-mockery and call themselves diaosi, which has helped the term take off. The word caters to a desire by millions to express their repressed feelings about life and its pressures. As a result, more young people are attaching the word to themselves, even though they are nowhere near as underprivileged as the original term was meant to suggest.

Basically, diaosi have the following common characteristics:

First, it is a reflection of the anxiety and resentment of many youths who fret that social hierarchy is generally formed by family power, and that it will not change easily. Second, diaosi reflects that youths take themselves less seriously. In claiming to be diaosi, these people are affirming the hard work it takes to achieve personal progress. Their cynical outlook on life helps to release disappointment and cheers them up. Third, diaosi often long after an idyllic soul mate. The problem is that the person they want to hook up with would be anything but attracted to them, leading to sexual frustration, loneliness and depression. Fourth, diaosi always toil away in hard, exhausting and gloomy jobs. But they are usually at the middle of the social stratum and never the lowest.

Many young people attach the word to themselves even though they are not nearly as hard up as the original diaosi. In that sense, diaosi are much like Ah Q, a character created by Lu Xun (a celebrated Chinese writer) in a novel. Ah Q is a rural peasant with little education and no fixed job and famous for "spiritual victories", Lu Xun's euphemism for self-deception even when faced with extreme defeat or humiliation. Ah Q is a bully to the less fortunate but fearful of those who are above him in rank, strength or power. He convinces himself that he is spiritually superior to his oppressors even as he succumbs to their tyranny and suppression.

And just as the word diaosi has become popular in China, there are youths in the US for whom being called a loser has lost its sting. In one song, Beck, a rock star representing the consumer generation, says, "I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?"