键盘侠

What does 键盘侠 mean?

A 键盘侠 is a keyboard knight-errant: someone who defends justice, fact-checks strangers and demands the harshest punishments, all from the comfort of a chair. The word borrows 侠, the noble wandering hero of martial-arts fiction, and hands it to people whose bravery evaporates the moment they stand up from the desk. It can sting or tease: aimed outward it accuses others of performative outrage, and it is used just as often in self-mockery by users admitting they would never say this to anyone's face.

Where does 键盘侠 come from?

The label spread through Chinese social media around 2014 and hardened into the standard name for internet vigilantism. The People's Daily Overseas Edition devoted a piece to it on 2017-07-21 headlined simply Wake up, 键盘侠, warning that cheering on punishment without knowing the facts is not righteousness. Long after its birth year, the word remains common far beyond the comment sections that coined it.

How to use 键盘侠

• 新闻刚出来三小时，键盘侠们已经审完全案了。
  Xīnwén gāng chūlái sān xiǎoshí, jiànpánxiá men yǐjīng shěn wán quán'àn le.
  Three hours after the story broke, the keyboard knights had already tried the whole case.
• 他在网上骂得最凶，线下被邻居吵到也不敢敲门。
  Tā zài wǎngshàng mà de zuì xiōng, xiànxià bèi línjū chǎo dào yě bù gǎn qiāomén.
  Online he shouts the loudest; offline he will not even knock on a noisy neighbor's door.