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I was online recently and saw an image saying "肚纸饿“ (although I cannot presently locate it). I know "肚子饿” means "I'm hungry", but the character 纸 used in the image means paper. Was it used instead of the normal 子 because it sounds similar?

＊对不起，我的中文真不好；这是我自己的翻译，我知道不是很简单看懂！＊
我上网的时候看了一个照片说“肚纸好饿”。（不好意思，现在不会找到它。）我知道“肚子饿的意思“，可是没听过了”肚纸“。是一样的吗？为什么有剪纸的纸跟肚子？就是应为听的是很像的吗？谢谢！

It is of course not the right way to write it if it meant to say "肚子饿". It could be a fashion trend to use "肚纸饿" to replace "肚子饿" because they sound similar. It is like when English people use french and made it official later on. For example, french people use soudier to mean mercenary and English people used it to create the word soldier. I don't know the fashion trend but that could be a reason.

子and纸，
Thier pronunciation is similar
Just like "Girl" in Chinese is
“女孩子”also can say“女孩纸”
“纸”A little cuter in expression than"子"

Chinese netizens use words sounding similar to their authentic ones to express many feelings.

肚纸 (zhi) is easier to pronounce thus childish (think of a child not able to say difficult syllable) than 肚子 (zi). We call this 卖萌/装嫩. Often you ll have emoticons and modal particles together serving that aim.

E.G. 咕，我肚纸饿了啦(／≧ω＼)，快点去吃饭吧( •̥́ ˍ •̀ू )

Likewise, there are 孩纸（孩子）/傻敷敷（傻乎乎）/靴靴（谢谢）/敲（超）……

But you might see various "substitute" of original phrases. Here list some of them.

"Transliteration" of English (not official or formal, but the character combination is fun)

碧池(bitch)/狗带(go die)/爱豆(idol)/……
and their further extension “我看你有如一池春水（sounds beautiful, hah）”, But actually 一池春水>春天绿色的池塘>碧池>bitch>he/she is cursing you.

Substitute by more "cute" homophonic characters

蟹蟹（谢谢）/甜（填）/卸腰（谢邀）/娇妻（脚气>手气）

Other innuendo

滋磁（支持）/蛤蛤（哈哈）/一颗赛艇（exciting）/强人锁男（强人所难）/满头大汉（满头大汗）……

"acronym"

xswl（吓/笑死我了）/zqsg（真情实感）/wqnjysx（我劝你谨言慎行）/ssfd（瑟瑟发抖）/271（爱奇艺）

Their pronunciations sound quite same in Chinese.

However , "子" is quite more formal than "纸".

For example, you can usually see some news titles like "台湾一年轻女子当街炫富(A young lady show off her prosperity in the street in Taiwan)", where you can not use "年轻女纸" in this news title, it's too casual.

But in daily speaking or chatting on the Internet, you can use "纸" instead of "子" .It sounds cute in Chinese.

Just abuse of words. With similar pronunciation but incorrect character. Maybe like "CU" for "see you". You may know what does that mean in daily life, but not in rigorous writing. However, some online novels, IM texts or other similar circumstances this does happen.

OK,I am Chinese.
"肚纸(zhi)" is a kind of imitate pronunciation of "肚子(zi)".
People use this imitation for making them cute, or funny.
In this case, 纸 may be replaced with any other characters which have the same or even the similar pronunciation. They are actually the same meaning.

因为说肚纸比说肚子可爱呀，在中文里经常用谐音代替原本的词语，比如：想你，老戴(脑袋)里都是你！