Every year in China, social media users cast their vote in various polls for the Chinese character of the year.
While official polling has not begun, Sina Weibo user Zhang Huyue has proposed a new character into the runnings that has since gone viral.
The character qiou is gaining ground as the hashtag "2018 Chinese character of the year" reached 25 million views as of Tuesday. Qiou is a portmanteau of qiong (poor) and chou (ugly).
While it wasn't clear who created the word, Zhang offered definitions that include "being so poor that you must eat dirt."
The written character combines elements from both characters in such a way that many internet users commented they could discern its meaning immediately.
Some joked they identified with the word a little too much.
"Shouldn't that be pronounced 'me' instead," one netizen wrote.
"Could it be that this word was tailor-made for me?" wrote another.
