233

What does 233 mean?

Type 233 and anyone in a Chinese chat knows you are laughing. The digits work as a keyboard laugh: 233 alone is a chuckle, 2333 or a longer chain is a belly laugh, and the count of threes measures how funny something is. It survives because it is faster to type than haha and because the generation raised in forums and QQ group chats keeps it alive. It sits in the same shorthand family as praise digits like 666.

Where does 233 come from?

The number comes from Mop, a Chinese forum popular in the 2000s, where every built-in emoticon had an ID and number 233 was a figure slapping the floor in laughter. Quoting the number in a reply stood in for posting that image, and the habit outlived the emoticon when users moved on to QQ, Tieba and Weibo. Later users stretched it into chains like 233333..., though most who type it today have never seen the original drawing.

How to use 233

• 他发来一段猫咪翻车视频，我回了个“233”，他直接甩来一长串“23333333”。
  Tā fā lái yī duàn māomī fānchē shìpín, wǒ huíle gè “233”, tā zhíjiē shuǎi lái yī cháng chuàn “23333333”.
  He sent a clip of a cat wiping out and I replied with a single 233, so he fired back a whole string of 23333333.
• 群里翻出十年前的老帖，满屏都是233，刚入群的新人问这串数字是什么意思。
  Qún lǐ fān chū shí nián qián de lǎo tiě, mǎn píng dōu shì 233, gāng rù qún de xīnrén wèn zhè chuàn shùzì shì shénme yìsi.
  The group dug up a ten-year-old thread, the screen filled up with 233, and a new member asked what the string of digits meant.