Asian Prince

1999internet hoaxclassic

Asian Prince, also known as Asianprince213 or Wo-Hen Nankan, was a Geocities hoax page from 1999 featuring glamour photos of a mustached Asian man posing as a boastful pop star. The site drew international attention through the early 2000s before being exposed as fake, with the photos actually belonging to Vietnamese-American singer Tuấn Anh.

hoax memesgeocities memesearly internet memespersonal homepage memeshidden identity memes

Overview

Asian Prince, whose full handle was Asianprince213, was a fictional online personality built around a Geocities fan page from 19994. The page mixed glamour portraits of a mustached Asian man with journal entries written from the point of view of a wildly successful Asian pop star. The subject's fashion sense drew comparisons to American rock figures like Prince and Little Richard, all frilled shirts and heavy makeup.

The persona also went by 'Wo-Hen Nankan,' a Chinese Mandarin phrase meaning 'I am so ugly' (translated from Chinese Mandarin). The boastful voice of the diary entries, matched against the theatrical portraits, made the page instantly quotable on early 2000s message boards1. The man in the photos had no involvement with the site; his identity was pinned on Vietnamese-American singer Tuấn Anh based in California3.

How It Spread

Asian Prince first spread internationally, showing up on Japanese and South Korean blogs and message boards around 2000, well before the English-speaking web caught on4. On the English side, the page began circulating in 2001. The World Losers Consortium added Asian Prince to its 'Players' roster on May 13, 20015. On January 28, 2002, a BeyondUnreal Forum member started an off-topic thread titled 'The sexy and rebel Asian Prince is here'6.

Excerpts from the diary entries turned into copypasta gags on forums, and small fan sites sprang up hosting Asian Prince desktop wallpapers and Winamp skins1. By June 2002, the operator wiped the original content and replaced the homepage with a short farewell message. The site was archived at least 76 times by the Wayback Machine in 2004 alone, showing the joke was still alive years after the exposure2.

New diary entries were reportedly added until 2005, when the account holder shifted operations to a MySpace profile. Copycat blogs and profiles using the same photos kept the character in circulation on the mid-2000s web3.

How to Use This Meme

Asian Prince is typically referenced through out-of-context quotes lifted from the original Geocities diary entries, used as copypasta to mock over-the-top self-promotion. Fans also commonly passed around the portrait shots as reaction images and built small tribute pages hosting wallpapers or Winamp skins based on them1.

Frequently Asked Questions

Asian Prince

1999internet hoaxclassic

Asian Prince, also known as Asianprince213 or Wo-Hen Nankan, was a Geocities hoax page from 1999 featuring glamour photos of a mustached Asian man posing as a boastful pop star. The site drew international attention through the early 2000s before being exposed as fake, with the photos actually belonging to Vietnamese-American singer Tuấn Anh.

hoax memes geocities memes early internet memes personal homepage memes hidden identity memes

Overview

Asian Prince, whose full handle was Asianprince213, was a fictional online personality built around a Geocities fan page from 19994. The page mixed glamour portraits of a mustached Asian man with journal entries written from the point of view of a wildly successful Asian pop star. The subject's fashion sense drew comparisons to American rock figures like Prince and Little Richard, all frilled shirts and heavy makeup.

The persona also went by 'Wo-Hen Nankan,' a Chinese Mandarin phrase meaning 'I am so ugly' (translated from Chinese Mandarin). The boastful voice of the diary entries, matched against the theatrical portraits, made the page instantly quotable on early 2000s message boards1. The man in the photos had no involvement with the site; his identity was pinned on Vietnamese-American singer Tuấn Anh based in California3.

How It Spread

Asian Prince first spread internationally, showing up on Japanese and South Korean blogs and message boards around 2000, well before the English-speaking web caught on4. On the English side, the page began circulating in 2001. The World Losers Consortium added Asian Prince to its 'Players' roster on May 13, 20015. On January 28, 2002, a BeyondUnreal Forum member started an off-topic thread titled 'The sexy and rebel Asian Prince is here'6.

Excerpts from the diary entries turned into copypasta gags on forums, and small fan sites sprang up hosting Asian Prince desktop wallpapers and Winamp skins1. By June 2002, the operator wiped the original content and replaced the homepage with a short farewell message. The site was archived at least 76 times by the Wayback Machine in 2004 alone, showing the joke was still alive years after the exposure2.

New diary entries were reportedly added until 2005, when the account holder shifted operations to a MySpace profile. Copycat blogs and profiles using the same photos kept the character in circulation on the mid-2000s web3.

How to Use This Meme

Asian Prince is typically referenced through out-of-context quotes lifted from the original Geocities diary entries, used as copypasta to mock over-the-top self-promotion. Fans also commonly passed around the portrait shots as reaction images and built small tribute pages hosting wallpapers or Winamp skins based on them1.

Frequently Asked Questions