多巴胺××

What does 多巴胺×× mean?

Open a Chinese fashion feed and you keep meeting outfits that look like a highlighter set: hot pink worn with lemon yellow, all of it deliberate. That look has a name, 多巴胺穿搭 or dopamine dressing, and the name became a reusable pattern. 多巴胺 is the brain chemical tied to pleasure, so bolting it onto a noun announces that the thing exists to lift your mood. From clothes it spread to 多巴胺美食 (food in loud colours), 多巴胺装修 (interiors), 多巴胺妆容 (makeup) and eventually almost any object. The register is upbeat and a little playful, and 多巴胺 also works as a bare adjective: 'this cake is so dopamine'. Underneath sits the same assumption as 情绪价值: how a thing makes you feel counts as part of what it is worth.

Where does 多巴胺×× come from?

2023 was the year it caught on, as the dopamine-dressing trend ran through Chinese social media: people posting outfits in vivid colours chosen purely to cheer themselves up. The formula soon detached from fashion and became available for anything colourful and happy. 《咬文嚼字》 (Yaowen Jiaozi), a magazine that spends its days policing word usage, gave 多巴胺×× one of its ten buzzword slots for that year.

How to use 多巴胺××

• 今天来一套多巴胺穿搭，心情都变好了。
  Jīntiān lái yí tào duōbā'àn chuāndā, xīnqíng dōu biàn hǎo le.
  I went for a dopamine outfit today, and my mood instantly got better.
• 这个彩虹蛋糕太多巴胺了！
  Zhège cǎihóng dàngāo tài duōbā'àn le!
  This rainbow cake is so dopamine!