主要看气质

What does 主要看气质 mean?

Read the four characters as a comeback: never mind the unflattering angle or the messy background, the thing mainly depends on your 气质, your aura. It started as a caption for selfies that were charming precisely because they were imperfect, and then snowballed into a chain dare. Post a selfie with the words, tag a friend, and watch the dare travel. The phrase also escaped photography: a noodle shop with shabby decor but transcendent broth can be defended with the same four characters. Substance over polish, claimed with a wink.

Where does 主要看气质 come from?

The meme rolled through Weibo and WeChat in November and December 2015, peaking in a wave of selfies that briefly buried every other kind of post. By 2015-12-08 China Daily was already writing an explainer about it, and a week later the year-end slang list published by China News Service (中新网, 2015-12-15) included 主要看气质 by name.

How to use 主要看气质

• 老同学在群里发了张十年前的非主流自拍，配文只有四个字：主要看气质。
  Lǎo tóngxué zài qún lǐ fā le zhāng shí nián qián de fēizhǔliú zìpāi, pèiwén zhǐyǒu sì gè zì: zhǔ yào kàn qì zhì.
  An old classmate dropped a ten-year-old emo-era selfie in the group chat, captioned with just four characters: 主要看气质.
• 手机像素糊成一团，她还是发了，评论区一点没客气，她回：主要看气质。
  Shǒujī xiàngsù hú chéng yī tuán, tā háishì fā le, pínglùnqū yī diǎn méi kèqi, tā huí: zhǔ yào kàn qì zhì.
  The photo was a blurry mess and she posted it anyway; the comments were merciless, and her only reply was: it's all about the aura.