guides
What Does 'Bing Chilling' Mean, And How Is John Cena Involved?
If you've seen a video of John Cena speaking what appears to be free-flowing and fluent Mandarin while holding up an ice cream, you might be wondering why he is insisting that he's "been chilling." Or maybe you are wondering who Bing Chilling is, and why Cena is resorting to speaking Chinese to call on them.
Well, in that case, you would be wrong on both counts, because John Cena isn't just holding up that ice cream as a prop, he is using it as a bizarre metaphor to get Chinese people to watch the ninth Fast And Furious movie. Read on to find out what "Bing Chilling" actually means.
Where Does "Bing Chilling" Come From?
In May 2021, John Cena took to his long-existing Weibo account to post a video holding an ice cream cone in order to promote his new film, the ninth installment of the The Fast & Furious. He waves it around and even sings into it like a microphone before insisting in rather broken Mandarin that the new F9 movie is better than "Bing Chilling," which one would infer means ice cream. Make of that what you will.
The video began to gain traction soon after John Cena had to apologize to his Chinese fans for referring to Taiwan as a country and not a province of China. And you would do it too for a check!.
"Bing Chilling" Usage In Memes
Unsurprisingly, Cena's video and various attempts from people to translate it into English went viral, largely due to the absurdity of a square-faced, red-blooded American-looking man enthusiastically speaking Mandarin while holding a melting ice cream cone. Some of the funnier videos to draw on his original video were ones that delivered entirely wrong translations of his words, making him sound like he fears for his life after being assigned a low credit score in China.
Other videos simply took him for his word, instead choosing to dwell on the absurdity of the "Bing Chilling," which happens to be the most legible part of his faulty Mandarin shpeal.
For the full history of Bing Chilling, be sure to check out our entry on the slang term here for even more information.
