Come on now, admit it. The reason you are here right now is because you have seen the viral passport photo of Phuc Dat Bich. That’s right, Phuc Dat Bich, the Australian man or Vietnamese decent with perhaps a very unfortunate name when said in English. If you haven’t worked it out yet, well use your imagination. But despite all the rage, Phuc Dat Bich is unfortunately nothing more than a HOAX. Yep, that’s right, the Vietnamese Aussie and his passport to fame was nothing more than a very elaborate hoax.
Now, you may have seen this passport photo on a good deal of websites around the world, as well as many mainstream press and media outlets. The original Facebook post, showing his passport and name, gained significant international attention after he claimed that Facebook had shut down his account because it was, well, profanity. The Facebook post was a lengthy rant, and garnered a huge flurry of support from all quarters of the world. But as funny as it was to make fun of the name and share it among friends, it turned out to be nothing else but a prank.
After his face was spread around the world, Tin Le (his real name), came clean when he realized that the jig was up. He knew that someone would eventually recognize him and out him as a fake.
Making quite a lengthy post about it, Tin, or Mr T as he prefers to be called, not only made light of the international storm surrounding his alter-ego, but also congratulated himself on a job well done.
Do you remember the story; The boy who cried wolf? Imagine that boy grew up into a mischievous man with 21st century technology at his finger tips.
What started as a joke between friends, became a prank that made a fool out of the media and brought out the best in the people who reached out to me
~Tin Le AKA Phuc Dat Bich
So how did the Phuc Dat Bich hoax start?
Like a good deal many of practical jokes, it started as a joke between friends. Tin then took it to the next level by making a Facebook post criticising the social network giant for their policy regarding names. Clearly the post took off and went viral.
It was only a few hours after the Australian SBS network (a mixed cultural network dedicated to broadcasting world content) that Tin came clean on his elaborate hoax. SBS’s Vietnamese program found it highly unlikely that the name was real as Bich was not of Vietnamese origin.
