China’s propaganda machine has found a new way to talk about American hardship, and it comes straight out of gamer slang.
Stock photo of Xi'an, China. (Getty Images/axz66)
China’s state-run media and online nationalist commentators have latched onto an unusual new piece of American gamer slang to highlight what they portray as life’s precarity in the United States. The term is “kill line,” borrowed from video games to describe the point at which a character is effectively doomed. Chinese outlets have repurposed it as a metaphor for American poverty and economic insecurity, according to reporting from the New York Times.
In this telling, once Americans fall below an invisible economic threshold, they face an unavoidable spiral of homelessness, overwhelming debt, addiction, and other hardships, with little chance of recovery. The broader message is clear: Americans live under constant financial threat, while China’s system is presented as a protective alternative that prevents such total collapse.
Chinese propaganda has long emphasized social problems in the US, but the “kill line” framing is new. The Economist describes it as a kind of shorthand for everything Chinese commentators argue is broken in America and functioning properly at home. The phrase gained traction after a November video posted on the Bilibili platform by a creator known as Squid King, who recounted grim experiences from his time in the US. His anecdotes included food-insecure delivery workers, children asking neighbors for food on Halloween, and injured laborers being denied medical care. State media and nationalist influencers quickly amplified the term, presenting it as evidence of capitalism’s “true operating logic.” They pointed to sources ranging from a Financial Times article on wealth inequality in Connecticut to J.D. Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy to support their claims.
The campaign comes as China faces significant economic challenges of its own, including slower growth, high youth unemployment, weak rural pensions, and widespread anxiety about financial ruin caused by illness or job loss. While inequality and insecurity remain serious problems, visible homelessness is tightly controlled and rarely seen in daily life.
By late December, “kill line” had entered official rhetoric. State outlets such as the Beijing Daily promoted discussions of the concept on Weibo, contrasting American stories with China’s basic health care and poverty relief programs. Commentators insisted that “China’s system will not allow a person to be ‘killed’ by a single misfortune.”
One Los Angeles resident quoted by Xinhua said the message resonated, at least in part. “I make about $100,000 a year, but the cost of living is so high that my family is one paycheck away from disaster,” he said. “We’re the new working poor. It’s insane.”
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