i人 / e人

What does i人 / e人 mean?

A new group chat forms and within minutes someone has typed 'I'm an i人, please don't make me introduce myself first'. An i人 is an introvert who recharges alone and dreads small talk; an e人 is the extrovert who gets livelier the more people are in the room and cannot leave a silence unfilled. The labels work as shorthand social identities, and the most reliable jokes set the two types side by side in the same situation. Spin-offs exist too, among them 为i做e, an introvert obliged to perform extroversion at work or at a party. Nobody is doing serious psychology here: it's playful self-description, and it tends to come up while looking for a like-minded 搭子.

Where does i人 / e人 come from?

Both labels come from the MBTI personality test, which went viral among young people in China around 2022–2023, especially on Xiaohongshu. In 2023 i人/e人 appeared on a list of the year's top ten internet buzzwords, singled out there as the most popular social label of the year.

How to use i人 / e人

• 我是i人，聚会只想坐在角落。
  Wǒ shì i rén, jùhuì zhǐ xiǎng zuò zài jiǎoluò.
  I'm an introvert — at parties I just want to sit in the corner.
• 全组就他一个e人，破冰全靠他了。
  Quán zǔ jiù tā yí gè e rén, pòbīng quán kào tā le.
  He's the only extrovert on our team, so breaking the ice is all on him.