ETYMOLOGY
The legend of Héxiè began around 2005 when Chinese internet regulators intensified content control. Censorship systems automatically blocked the word 'harmony' (和谐) used in political contexts. Witty netizens subverted this by misspelling it as 河蟹 (river crab) - homophonic yet visually absurd enough to bypass filters.
The term went viral during 2009's World of Warcraft forum purge, where players flooded deleted threads with crab emojis and memes saying 'All hail the mighty River Crab!' This creative resistance birthed derivative verbs ('to crabify') and even a mythical 'Censorship Crab' mascot in internet folklore.
By 2013, #GotCrabbedToday trended on Weibo with 200M+ views. Ironically, state media occasionally adopts this slang when reporting internet culture abroad, showcasing how grassroots linguistic innovation persists even under digital authoritarianism.