In the past few days, “tangping” has become a trending keyword in the search bar, which means “lying down” or “lying flat”. This term came from an online article “tangping is righteous” published on April 17.

“I haven’t worked for more than two years, and haven’t felt strange to be simply chilling. The pressure mainly comes from seeking to position myself after comparing with those around, and the traditional mode of thinking of the elders. They are omnipresent. The trending news is always about “peripheral fertility” of celebrities falling in love and getting pregnant, as if they are some “invisible creatures” asserting ideological pressure on you. Humans do not have to be this way at all. I could well be Diogenes (editor’s note: ancient Greek philosopher, representative of Cynicism) who only slept in his own barrel under the sun, or I could be Heraclitus (editor’s note: ancient Greek philosopher) who lived in a cave to think about Logos. Since there has never been an ideological trend that exalts human subjectivity on this land, I am, therefore, going to create one for myself. Lying down is my sage movement. Only by lying down can humans become the measure of all things.”

This article resonated with tens of millions of mainland youths. They are considered those do not wish to kneel yet cannot stand, therefore can only lie down in a non-violent and non-cooperative posture in a passive confrontation to the various demands imposed by society on people, breaking free of constraints such as marriage, children, promotions, and properties.

In his analysis for Apple Daily, mainland political scholar Wu Qiang described the gradually weakening possibility of resistance, the fading of the hope for societal reform, and the ossifying of politics that have led society to a consensus that society has fallen into stagnation. Society’s attitude is therefore embodied in “lying-downism”, which is a significant change in mainland society.

It is reported that “Good-hearted traveler” lives on CN$200 (US$30) a month. The author works one to two months a year by lying down, assuming a corpse, at Hengdian World Studios. Aside from that, the author is kept busy through exercises and travels, while insisting on a low-cost and slow-paced lifestyle model. This is how the lying down philosophy of life was born, known as “lying-downism” or “flatness doctrine”.

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