Have you ever imagined what it would be like if you became famous overnight and your memes went viral on social media just for taking an interview? An 18-year-old boy from east China had just experienced this and it was probably the most unusual time of his life when his memes took the social media by storm overnight after he was interviewed by a local TV station.

The boy, identified as Wu Zhengqiang, who just wanted to stand up for his rights during an interview, suddenly drew numerous netizens’ attention by his odd look with the impressive eyebrows and haircut in the video, as well as his unusual experience in a barbershop in Hangzhou City, east China’s Zhejiang Province.

Wu went to a local barbershop to fix his hairline and sideburns on August 28 and ended up being asked to pay nearly 40,000 yuan (5,856 US dollars) for the service. Although the shop gave him a bargain price of 18,000 yuan later, he still found the price extremely expensive and unacceptable, so he called the police.

After negotiation, Wu ended up paying 2,500 yuan for the service, but he still felt he got into a trap and was annoyed for being treated unfairly, therefore, he decided to seek for the help of local media to expose his experience to the public.

Fortunately, a local TV program – 1818 Golden Eye, were interested in reporting Wu’s unusual experience so the video of him being interviewed was posted on the program’s official Weibo, China’s Twitter-equivalent, on August 29, which was soon viewed and reposted by tens of thousands of users.

So far, the video clip of Wu’s interview has gained nearly 42 million views and more than 100,000 reposts. The video was also posted by other media outlets on their social media accounts.

But this is not enough. Shortly after the video went viral, screenshots of Wu’s face during the interview were made into various funny memes by netizens and began to circulate widely on social media.

Even more, Wu was given a nickname of “hairline boy” by netizens and the hashtag #MemesOfHairlineBoy soon became a trend on Weibo, which had more than 420 million views.

Unexpectedly, Wu became an Internet celebrity overnight after taking an interview and easily gained Internet fame.

Despite a miserable experience for Wu, many netizens still found his odd look with his frown and sad expressions in the video so funny and impressive and they couldn’t stop sharing his memes on social media.  

“I’m sorry but his look is so funny and I couldn’t stop laughing,” commented a user @pikaRF on Weibo.

However, although many were attracted by Wu’s unusual appearance in the first place, his experience also raised the public awareness around unreasonable charges in the barbershop.

“We all paid too much attention on his peculiar look while forgetting how tragic the issue was for an 18-year-old boy who just started working. As a new comer to society, Wu didn’t have much savings and was forced to pay 2,500 yuan for a haircut. It was a disaster for him, as well as for the whole society,” commented a user @Mintrody on Weibo.

“It is a quite common issue across the country and many similar incidents were reported previously. Local authorities should be responsible for this kind of issue,” commented another user @chenjiebing on Weibo.

However, not everyone likes to be under the spotlight, including Wu. When asked about his feelings of becoming famous overnight, Wu confessed that it bothered him a lot since he went viral on social media.

“Since I became famous on the Internet, I received numerous phone calls from the media every day and it really bothered me a lot,” Wu told Pear Video, “I know that if I worked as an Internet celebrity and did livestreaming online, I could earn much more money, but I don’t see any reason to do it and I don’t want to quit my job.”

Wu came to Hangzhou to seek a living and currently works in a local real estate agency. After he became famous, netizens even flooded his personal Weibo with tens of thousands comments.

Although Wu felt unhappy with the unexpectedly Internet fame, he still held an open attitude about his funny memes, he even posted nine iconic memes of himself on his Weibo account.

“To be honest, I don’t like to be made into memes. But since the netizens found them so funny, I’d like to join in with them,” Wu told Pear Video.

Local authorities had already launched an investigation into the issue and the barbershop later refunded 2,500 yuan to Wu, according to The Paper.