Asian Prince

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About

Asianprince213, also known as Wo-Hen Nankan (Chinese Mandarin: "I am so ugly"), is a fictional personality that gained online notoriety in the early 2000s through a Geocities page featuring various glamour portraits of an effeminate-looking Asian man and journal entries written from the perspective of a successful and boastful musician who is mainly active in Asia. Following the viral takeoff of the website, the so-called "Asian Prince" was debunked as a hoax based on photographs of Vietnamese-American singer Tuấn Anh based in California, United States.

Origin

The Geocities page^[1] for Asianprince213 was created in 1999, featuring several glamour portraits of a mustached Asian man, whose style of fashion seemed heavily influenced by American rock musicians like Prince and Little Richard, accompanied by self-introductory text:

POPUP: Hello Ladies!!!
POPUP: I am such a rebel!!!!”

Hi ladies, my name is Wo-Hen Nankan. Welcome to my site. I am searching for a girlfriend. The picture on the left is me. Aren't I very sexy? I am a singer and I've sold many records. If you're looking for someone who has a stable life, I'm the one you're looking for!

Feel free to browse my site. You will find me irresistible. If you want to become my princess, then e-mail me at AsianPrince213@yahoo.com. Do you like to chat? My AIM screen name is AsianPrince213. I hope you will be my inspiration for my next hit song! Also, don't forget to sign my guestbook!

Spread

Although it is unclear exactly when the Geocities page was first brought to online attention, Asianprince213 rose to international fame through blogs, discussion forums and message boards across the world wide web, including in Japan^[22] and South Korea,^[23] sometime in 2000.

On the English-speaking web, Asian Prince's Geocities page began to gain traction sometime between 2001 and 2002. On May 13th, 2001, Asian Prince was inducted to the list of "Players" on The World Losers Consortium.^[11] On January 28th, 2002, BeyondUnreal Forum^[14] member Marginal submitted an off-topic thread titled "The sexy and rebel Asian Prince is here." Shortly after its initial viral spread, many excerpts from the personality's profile page became used as out-of-context quotables for humorous effect on forums^[8], as well as spawning a few tongue-in-cheek fan sites that offered desktop wallpapers^[13] and Winamp skins based on the glamour portraits of Asianprince213.

After a year of no mustache, I decided that it wasn't for me. Having no mustache made me feel less of a man.

Look at how thick and full my hair is. When I become older, I guarantee you that I won't become bald and wrinkly.

One night, I was bored and decided to practice my computer graphics skills. That's why the background of this picture looks cool. The necklace that I'm wearing is coated with gems and diamonds. The earrings have diamonds on them too! The suit I'm wearing is one of a kind, again, custom made in europe.

In the following years, the legend of Asian Prince continued to spread in the forms of unofficial copycat blogs^[15] and online profiles^[9] bearing his photographs, even after the personality was widely debunked as a made-up hoax. In 2004, the Geocities page was archived at least 76 times by the Wayback Machine^[10], indicating that the meme continued to enjoy widespread exposure well into the mid-2000s. It has been said that the writer behind Asianprince213 continued to upload new diary entries until 2005 when he launched the MySpace account.^[12]

Identity

As early as on May 6th, 2001, the mysterious man depicted in the photographs was identified by members of the Straight Dope Forums^[5] as the Vietnamese-American singer Tuan Anh living in California, citing a mention of the artist by OC Weekly^[19] in an article published in 1999. In 2002, a number of additional sites^[6]^[16] confirmed the personality of Asian Prince as a hoax, citing various footage of Tuan Anh's performance in Vietnam.

Whereas the page depicting the battle of Super Greg vs. Peter Pan can illustrate how identity can function with desire on the Internet, Asian Prince plays with identity in the context of the Internet hoax. As mentioned in the artist’s statement, the original identity of Asian Prince was as a Vietnamese glam rock star of the 1970’s. Over time an image was unearthed and new meaning applied as Asian Prince. We see again the occurrence of the novel and exotic trivialized, and though not overtly racist, functioning with the machinery of racism.

Site Closure

By June of 2002, Asianprince213 had removed all of the original content on the Geocities page and put up the following message on the homepage:

Sorry Ladies, I'm now taken by the most beautiful princess in the world. She is so hot, that she is even hotter than I am. I think that is good in a relationship. The girl should be the prettier one, or else she'll feel insecure. I'm usually the prettier one. It's been a long and hard search, but this prince is now taken.