‘Beautiful’ Female Biker Was Actually 50-Year-Old Dad Using FaceApp

Michael Zhang

A young female Japanese biker named Soya no Sohi attracted thousands of followers on Twitter over the past year by posting selfies on her travels through northern Japan. It turns out she was actually a 50-year-old dad using FaceApp on his iPhone.

Yasuo Nakajima started his Twitter account, @azusagakuyuki, back in early 2019, and he managed to gain a following by publishing the adventures of Soya, an attractive female biker who absolutely loved both motorcycles and travel.

Nakajima’s curious online “catfishing” façade started to come down back in February when he shared this indoor photo of his motorcycle. What some followers immediately spotted was the reflection of a person in the motorcycle’s rear-view mirror that looked nothing like the attractive biker they thought they were following.

The photo that was published (left) and a crop showing the reflection seen in the bike’s right rear view mirror (right).

Then in March, Nakajima finally revealed his secret to the world through the popular Japanese variety show Monday Late Show.

Nakajima admitted that he uses the popular AI selfie app FaceApp to drastically alter both his age and gender for the social media account, and said that he decided to create the online persona because he felt no one would be interested in the life of a normal middle-aged man.

After his first few months on Twitter, he had only attracted less than 10 followers, and that’s when Nakajima decided to create Soya no Sohi (“Soya’s Blue Ice” in Japanese). Each fake selfie only takes a few taps: he sets Gender to “Female,” Age to “Teen,” and the Impression setting to “Hollywood.”

In addition to Soya’s face, Nakajima also created a fun and upbeat personality through the words in the posts.

The surprising twist of Nakajima’s recent revelation has actually made the Twitter account, @azusagakuyuki, even more popular — it now boasts over 28,000 followers at the time of this writing, and many followers have told Nakajima that they fell in love with Soya’s personality rather than her appearance.

The Washington Post has published the first international interview with the divorced father of three and former competitive bodybuilder.

“The only thing I’m creating is, basically, my appearance. Everything else is me,” Nakajima tells WaPo. “When you’re young, you tend to be scolded or criticized by older people who say you should do this or you should do that. But at this age, there’s no one around to really scold me.

“I’m having the best time of my life.”

Image credits: Header still frame from Monday Late Show

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