In 2015 a novel term turned up in public discourse concerning English in Hong Kong: Kongish, which refers to a hybrid form of English and Cantonese employed in online communication. This paper sketches some of the features of Kongish and evaluates its status in Hong Kong, comparing and contrasting it with prior conceptualisations of ‘Hong Kong English’ as a local variety. It is claimed that the Kongish phenomenon is interesting for two major reasons: first it discloses certain aspects of language use under conditions of late modernity, covering computer mediation, the relationship between language and identity, and the presence of a dynamic multilingual language ecology. Second, comparing Kongish and Hong Kong English discloses some of the uses and restrictions of the variety notion in studies of language.