“U.S. ‘Kill Line’” — a Chinese meme (via a Bilibili creator) about economic precarity

I'm not the OOP, Woodfunnybird from r/tankiethedeprogram is and I think he talks of a Chinese national in Seattle

Lately I’ve seen a Chinese internet meme called “美国/北美斩杀线”, which literally reads like “U.S./North America kill line.” It sounds violent, but it’s mostly a gaming metaphor: in games, an “execute threshold” is the HP line below which you can finish someone off easily.

A popular Bilibili creator (nicknamed “Lao A” by viewers) helped push this meme into the mainstream by using it as a one-sentence model for economic fragility in the U.S./Canada:

below a certain “buffer,” a single small shock can trigger a cascade.

The “cascade” he describes is roughly:

• a minor injury / illness / accident happens

• costs and downtime hit at the same time

• missing one payment snowballs into fees, credit problems, or housing instability

• and once you’re “below the line,” climbing back out is much harder

He also talks (in a very memey, simplified way) about how modern life can be “stacked”: bills, notices, addresses, fines, deadlines, credit scoring, insurance rules—lots of small frictions that are manageable when you have savings and stability, but dangerous when you don’t.

To be clear: this is a meme framework, not an official term, and it can be exaggerated or one-sided. But I’m curious how it lands with people who live in the U.S./Canada:

TL;DR: Chinese netizens use “U.S. kill line” as a gaming metaphor for a point where one mishap can snowball into a major life downturn. A Bilibili creator popularized the framing, and I’m asking whether it resonates and what’s missing.

I searched it up in baidu and it seems like a legit thing to know on their internet