Tetraphenylethylene (TPE) is an exemplary AIE molecule that operates via the RIR mechanism. In solution, TPE molecules fail to luminescent due to the dissipation of energy from the excited state caused by the rotational motion of its four phenyl ring rotors. Leung et al. hypothesized that if the phenyl rings of TPE molecules were locked by chemical bonds , the luminescence quenching due to molecular rotation behavior in the solution could be avoided. Through experiments using saturated alkyl chain segments and unsaturated chain segments as anchors, perpendicular to the central double bond, two derivatives were synthesized: BDBA and THBDBA (Figure ). Strikingly, the experimental findings ran counter to expectations, as both BDBA and THBDBA still exhibited prototypical AIE properties. Computational simulations unveiled that THBDBA molecules exhibited chair and boat conformations while twisting or in-plane/out-of-plane group-swinging motions between these conformations led to non-radiative decay of the excited states. This seminal work not only postulated the RIV mechanism but also pioneered a suite of AIE molecules characterized by malleable vibrational units.