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Chinese video streaming platform Bilibili's word of 2023 is a single-character question of shock: Ah?
The word, written simply as a in pinyin, was used as an interrogative clause 13.2 million times on the platform this year, flooding viewers' screens in Bilibili's famed "bullet comments", which whisk by in horizontal streams atop videos as people watch.
The Shanghai-based company called the word, expressed with a question mark, the "most representative bullet comment" of 2023 in a post to its official WeChat account on Friday.
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Coupled with different punctuation, "ah" is often used in Chinese to express feelings of excitement, surprise or disbelief. When posed as a question, it translates roughly as, "Huh?"
Young users - the prime demographic for Bilibili - often use it in response to videos showing people with unique skills or major scientific and technological breakthroughs, the company said.
Bullet comments originated in Japan but became popular in China after Bilibili adopted the style. Other domestic video platforms eventually followed suit, including Baidu's iQiyi and Tencent Video.
The topics of the hottest videos where the term appeared spanned a wide range of areas such as cutting-edge technology, video games and traditional Chinese culture.
When China's state-owned nuclear power corporation announced in August that it had passed a milestone in its quest to create an "artificial sun", powered by nuclear fusion, comments on a related video published to China Central Television's military channel on Bilibili were filled with the term. The two-minute long video has nearly 1 million views and 70,000 likes.
In March, when video game reviewer IGN published a gameplay trailer of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - the latest title in the hit franchise from Kyoto-based console maker Nintendo - Chinese fans again flooded screens with "ah?" to express their surprised excitement.
"Ah?", Bilibili's "bullet comment of the year", displayed in a museum in China. Photo: Handout alt="Ah?", Bilibili's "bullet comment of the year", displayed in a museum in China. Photo: Handout>
Bilibili, which found early growth as an anime streaming site after its founding in 2009, has evolved into one of China's largest video platforms by targeting Millennials and Gen Z users.