潜水

What does 潜水 mean?

A WeChat group with three hundred members usually has about a dozen people doing the talking. Everyone else is 潜水员, a diver: present every single day, invisible in the record. The metaphor is exact, because a diver sees everything and adds nothing, surfacing only when there is a reason, which in practice means a red packet. A brief surfacing has its own name, 冒泡, to pop a single bubble, and some groups keep a little tank of 潜水 emoji to tease the quiet ones. 吃瓜 shares the silence, though a melon eater is watching a particular drama, while a diver does not even promise that much.

Where does 潜水 come from?

The diving metaphor is as old as the Chinese-language forum itself. Early-2000s message boards had already settled on 潜水 for reading without writing, and minted 潜水员 and 潜水艇 for the people who did it. It outlived its birthplace by moving: BBS, then QQ groups, then WeChat and DingTalk, where diving is less a choice than a permanent state. Today the word carries mild self-deprecation. Declaring yourself a long-term diver means: I am here, I read everything, and I will not be posting.

How to use 潜水

• 群里五百人，天天说话的不到十个，剩下的全是潜水员。
  Qún lǐ wǔbǎi rén, tiāntiān shuōhuà de bù dào shí gè, shèngxià de quán shì qiánshuǐyuán.
  Five hundred people in the group chat, fewer than ten speak on a normal day. Everyone else is a submarine crew member.
• 我在这个群里潜水三年，只在抢红包的时候冒个泡。
  Wǒ zài zhège qún lǐ qiánshuǐ sān nián, zhǐ zài qiǎng hóngbāo de shíhou mào gè pào.
  Three years lurking in this group, and it takes a red packet to make me surface for a moment.