About

Ding Chilling refers to memes and jokes about Chinese chess grandmaster Ding Liren, often showing him sitting alone in a room or photoshopped into the John Cena Bing Chilling meme. Memes jokingly referring to Ding Liren as "Ding Chilling" were popularized after he became a World Chess Champion in April 2023. Ding Liren was asked about his reaction to "Ding Chilling" memes at a press conference in early December 2024, causing a resurgence in the meme.

Origin

Precursor

Bing Chilling is a meme featuring a video posted by John Cena in May 2021. The clip shows the wrestler and actor sitting in a car and speaking in Mandarin, referring to the ice cream in his hand as Bing Qi Lin (冰淇淋), phonetically written as "Bing Chilling." The video became the subject of memes and remixes in the early 2020s.

Ding Chilling Origin

Memes jokingly referring to Chinese chess grandmaster Ding Liren as "Ding Chilling" grew popular after he became a World Chess Champion in April 2023. A video of Ding Liren sitting in a side room thinking about his moves was posted to Reddit's /r/chess^[1] by Redditor /u/AnnihilationOrchid on April 9th, 2023, gathering over 4,000 points in roughly two years.

The scene was also posted to Chess.com's Instagram^[2] page on April 9th with a text overlay that reads, "Ding was chilling during game one." The comments section of the video shows followers spamming the phrase "Ding Chilling," with the post gathering over 13,000 likes in roughly two years.

Ding Liren won the World Champion title in April 2023, leading to a sharp uptick in "Ding Chilling" memes.

Spread

On April 29th, 2024, YouTuber^[3] GMHikaru posted a video titled "Ding Chilling," recapping the events of the 2023 Chess World Championships. The video gathered over 170,000 views in a year.

On November 26th, 2024, Chess.com's official YouTube^[4] channel put out a video titled, "Ding Chilling | 1 Hour Of LoFi Beats To Relax/Play Chess To." The video showed Ding Liren sitting in a chess side room, gathering over 100,000 views in five days.

On December 1st, 2024, Ding Liren was asked about his reaction to the Ding Chilling memes at a press conference where he expressed amusement at the idea of people making jokes about him but claimed to be unaware of the memes at the time. Redditor /u/TakeoverPigeon posted a clip of the interaction to the subreddit /r/chess^[5] that same day, gathering over 4,000 points in a day.

Search Interest

External References