套路

What does 套路 mean?

A 套路 is a script you did not know you were walking into: the sales pitch with pre-planted questions, the friend who just happens to invite you to their new side business, the dating lines that turn out to be copy-pasted. To say 被套路了 is to admit you were played, usually with more amusement than anger, because spotting the routine after the fact is half the fun. The word also does honest work: teachers share 解题套路, standard routes for solving a problem. The plea 少一点套路，多一点真诚, less routine and more sincerity, became the era's polite way to call someone out.

Where does 套路 come from?

The word is old. 套路 long described the choreographed forms of martial arts and opera, and it entered everyday speech as a rehearsed way of doing something. Online it hardened into meaning a trick you can see coming but fall for anyway. The phrase broke wide in 2016 alongside the couplet 城市套路深，我要回农村, city dwellers' routines are deep, I want to go back to the village. That December, when the Ministry of Education's language monitoring center announced its 汉语盘点2016 roundup, the top-ten internet slang list carried the fuller form 全是套路.

How to use 套路

• 说好的是免费体验，进去之后被推销了半小时，我被套路了。
  Shuō hǎo de shì miǎnfèi tǐyàn, jìnqù zhīhòu bèi tuīxiāo le bàn xiǎoshí, wǒ bèi tàolù le.
  They promised a free trial, then pitched me for half an hour. I walked straight into the routine.
• “我帮你改需求是举手之劳。”“等等，你这是不是要给我加活？”“少一点套路，多一点真诚。”
  “Wǒ bāng nǐ gǎi xūqiú shì jǔshǒu zhī láo.” “Děngděng, nǐ zhè shì bú shì yào gěi wǒ jiā huó?” “Shǎo yīdiǎn tàolù, duō yīdiǎn zhēnchéng.”
  “Tweaking the requirements for you is no trouble at all.” “Wait, is this you handing me more work?” “Less routine, more sincerity.”