Japanese Biker Tricks Social Media into Thinking He Is a Young Woman

Social media users in Japan were recently fooled by a 50-year-old man who posed as a young female biker online, gaining a large following by changing his appearance using photo filters.

BBC News reports that a young female biker appeared to make waves on Japanese social media, gaining a large following for their photos which included selfies alongside high-quality motorbikes. It has since been revealed that the young woman is actually a 50-year-old man named Zonggu. The man used photo filter trickery to transform into a young woman on multiple platforms including Twitter.

The Twitter user @azusagakuyuki had gained a large following until a Japanese TV show revealed the true identity of the account’s owner, a 50-year-old Japanese man using photo filters to pose as a young Japanese woman.

Zonggu told the Japanese TV show Getsuyou Kara Yofukashi (Sitting Up Late From Monday) that he wanted to increase his social media presence but believed that people did not want to see an old “uncle” and would prefer to see a “younger beautiful woman.”

“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. Zonggu stated that he used editing apps such as FaceApp to transform himself into a young woman in multiple photos.

“First I just tried, then it happened to turn out to be fairly pretty. I get as many as 1,000 ‘likes’ now, though it was usually below 10 before,” he said, adding: “I got carried away gradually as I tried to make it cuter.”

Advancements in photo filter technology have made “catfishing,” or pretending to be another person online by using pictures of a completely different person, easier than ever. This potential problem goes hand in hand with deepfakes, AI-generated pictures and videos that can be produced to look and sound like anyone, often targeting famous people.