喷子

What does 喷子 mean?

喷 (spray) is the verb for flaming — 别喷我 (“don’t flame me”), 被喷 (“got flamed”) — and 喷子 is the person who does it professionally: the lobby flamer, the forum warrior, the all-chat philosopher. Every community has them, and Chinese servers quantity-produced theirs once voice and text chat became standard in competitive games. The classic saying goes 喷子不可怕，就怕喷子有文化 — “flamers aren’t scary; a flamer with culture is scary.”

Where does 喷子 come from?

喷 as internet abuse dates to the BBS flame-war era (口水战, “saliva wars”) of the early 2000s, where 喷 figured in phrases for hurling verbal attacks. 喷子 crystallized as gaming grew dominant in the 2010s: MOBAs with all-chat, team voice and post-game lobbies gave the species its ideal habitat, and the word now covers anyone whose main contribution to a match is chat damage.

How to use 喷子

• 别理他，他就是个喷子。
  Bié lǐ tā, tā jiùshì ge pēnzi.
  Don’t engage — he’s just a flamer.
• 打得菜还不让说，喷子吧你。
  Dǎ de cài hái bù ràng shuō, pēnzi ba nǐ.
  You play like trash and can’t take a word? Who’s the flamer now?