Your name is a huge part of your identity. Parents spend ages agonising over names for their children and often have disputes over it. Most people are pleased when they share names with celebrities. But, it can be a bad thing when the celebrity gets into a scandal.
After Kris Wu or otherwise known as Wu Yi Fan (吴亦凡) was arrested on rape allegations, he gave the name “Wu Yi Fan” a bad reputation. People sharing his name, both in real life and online, have been getting into trouble over it!
Wu Yifan (吴一凡) – who is pictured below – may have one different character in his name, but it sounds the same as Kris’ in Mandarin. Unfortunately, people hardly stop to look at the characters that make up his name before they judge him. He’s been having difficulties at work and in life so he quickly decided it was best if he changed his name.
After going through the necessary formalities, Wu Yifan (吴一凡) successfully changed his name to Wu Moulin (吴某林). Shortly after the name change, he was heard declaring that his life has been “reopened”. Needless to say, netizens got a kick out of it.
Mr. Wu Moulin may be a special case, but netizens have also been suffering the same ‘curse’. The Chinese-Canadian idol’s popularity made his name a favoured choice when choosing handles for online games. Unfortunately, this has now led to them being targeted by other players, both in-game and via chats. As such, over 2613 netizens opted to rename themselves to avoid the harassment.
Changing your name online may not be such a big deal, but there were netizens who had many things to say about former Wu Yifan (吴一凡) changing his name. Some saw no harm in it. “Who wants to have the same name as a rapist?” one comment bluntly stated.
Others expressed their grievance that Mr. Wu only wanted to change his name after Kris Wu’s scandal broke out. “Why didn’t you change your name when Kris used to be popular?” they asked. A few also joked that they had seen the name “Wu Yifan” in their textbooks.
Kris Wu may already be behind bars, but it seems he still has quite an effect on the outside world. It’s probably better to avoid using Kris Wu’s name online for now, if you want to avoid being harassed that is.
Hopefully, newly-christened Wu Moulin can have a better life now. We wish him all the best!
Sources: China Press, Xuan, Weibo
