Photo: Twitter / azusagakuyuki / Monday Late Show
There aren’t that many women in motorsports and moto racing or, at the very least, not as many taking center stage as men. But one woman that’s gotten plenty of attention in the last month is definitely more than meets the eye.
A strange story came out of Japan last month, but is just now blowing up in the international media: a considerably popular influencer female biker from Japan is actually a 50-year-old man. His true identity was disclosed on live TV last month, and his excuse for catfishing was that he simply wanted to bring more attention to the sport, Canadian outlet GlobalNews reports.
The “young woman” goes by Azusagakuyuki on social media. She’s young and pretty, and rides a Honda dirt bike whenever she has some time off. She often poses on her bike, on rides with pals and all types of outdoor adventures, or while working on the same bike, but as of late, she also got into the glamour selfie game. That was probably what paved the way to her unmasking.
At first, her followers picked up stuff like a strange reflection in the mirror of her bike, or an arm that seemed too hairy to belong on a woman. Strangely, no one minded the fact that the photos were obviously retouched to the point where you could definitely tell there was something “off” about them. Call this a testament of our social media-obsessed culture.
So, Azusagakuyuki went on live television a couple of weeks ago and revealed himself to be 50-year-old Zonggu, as you can see in the video below. He even showed them how he staged photos and then edited his face with FaceApp to look like a woman. But the hair is all his. Gorgeous, too.
As for why he did it, Zonggu is honest: he got little engagement to his posts as a man and he really wanted to get more people into motorcycle riding. So he wanted to see if the same posts by a woman made more of a difference. They did.
“No one will read what a normal middle-aged man, taking care of his motorcycle and taking pictures outside, posts on his account,” he said. “I got carried away gradually as I tried to make it cuter.”
Perhaps the most hilarious part about this catfishing story is that it worked: Zonggu has only become more popular since his unmasking. Since then, he’s also started posting real pics of himself, just for the fun of it.
The “young woman” goes by Azusagakuyuki on social media. She’s young and pretty, and rides a Honda dirt bike whenever she has some time off. She often poses on her bike, on rides with pals and all types of outdoor adventures, or while working on the same bike, but as of late, she also got into the glamour selfie game. That was probably what paved the way to her unmasking.
At first, her followers picked up stuff like a strange reflection in the mirror of her bike, or an arm that seemed too hairy to belong on a woman. Strangely, no one minded the fact that the photos were obviously retouched to the point where you could definitely tell there was something “off” about them. Call this a testament of our social media-obsessed culture.
So, Azusagakuyuki went on live television a couple of weeks ago and revealed himself to be 50-year-old Zonggu, as you can see in the video below. He even showed them how he staged photos and then edited his face with FaceApp to look like a woman. But the hair is all his. Gorgeous, too.
As for why he did it, Zonggu is honest: he got little engagement to his posts as a man and he really wanted to get more people into motorcycle riding. So he wanted to see if the same posts by a woman made more of a difference. They did.
“No one will read what a normal middle-aged man, taking care of his motorcycle and taking pictures outside, posts on his account,” he said. “I got carried away gradually as I tried to make it cuter.”
Perhaps the most hilarious part about this catfishing story is that it worked: Zonggu has only become more popular since his unmasking. Since then, he’s also started posting real pics of himself, just for the fun of it.
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