Why 'The Big Bang Theory' resonates with Chinese geeks

When producers at US network CBS launched a show in 2007 chronicling the lives and dating woes of four nerdy California Institute of Technology scientists and their cute female neighbour, they didn't expect to create one of the biggest television sensations in China.

Yet that's exactly what they did with The Big Bang Theory, a sitcom that has garnered almost 1.3 billion views since appearing on video site Sohu TV in 2009. The socially inept protagonists have found an audience on the mainland, just as it has entered an era of geek culture.

Awkward bookworms such as the male characters in The Big Bang Theory are becoming more hip in China, or at least more mainstream: one of the mainland's most popular words in 2013 was diaosi, a once-pejorative term for poor, girlfriend-less geeks that translators render as "loser".

In one survey conducted by the mainland internet portal Sohu, over 80 per cent of respondents aged 24 to 34 identified themselves as diaosi.

On Douban, a social media platform for TV and book lovers, a commenter noted that "many diaosi were watching" The Big Bang Theory.

The Guangzhou Daily wrote in an August 2012 review of the sitcom that "we have experienced the life of a diaosi, which is why we see ourselves in The Big Bang Theory".

It may seem odd that young Chinese would label themselves losers, but as non-profit research website Civil China explains, diaosi are different: their status is shaped not by personal failings but "by larger social conditions".