Internet propels the likes of Xu Weizhou to instant stardom

When singer Xu Weizhou (more popularly known as Timmy Xu) arrived at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, he was astonished to see a frenzied mob of local fans screaming his name in Mandarin.

The pandemonium occurred a couple of days before Xu's Thailand concert, part of his First Light Asia Tour 2016 in July last year.

"I felt a bit scared and confused. So many fans were waiting outside the airport. I only have two English songs. The rest are all in Chinese," Xu said in Beijing last week.

"But when I sang at the (Bangkok) concert, the fans followed me word by word. Despite their pronunciation, it was easy to sense that they did learn Chinese."

The singer is now promoting his first documentary Guang Zhi Ying (Shadow of Light), which was released online on March 21.

In the film, the 22-year-old star provides an interesting take on China's fast-evolving pop culture.

His father was a drummer. Xu began to learn Latin dance as a teenager. But he also learned guitar and began composing songs in high school.

His parents once hoped for him to excel in school and get a regular job. Xu says he had conflicts with his family and insisted on pursuing his musical dreams.

"When the children in neighborhood went to bed, I was practicing my instruments."

But he owes his stardom more to the internet than hard work.

His portrayal of protagonists in a couple of online productions, such as the coming-of-age web movie Gaming Madness in 2015, earned him a huge fan base - not only domestically but also in some Southeast Asian countries.

Meanwhile, the fast growth of the online-series trend in China, which saw a total output of 120,000 minutes, or an increase of 196 percent year-on-year in2016, is creating a shortcut for aspirants like Xu to become overnight sensations.

With more Chinese movies and TV series showing overseas, Chinese idols - especially pretty young faces - are gaining recognition in neighboring countries and probably farther afield.

In March, Xu was appointed as a cultural communication ambassador by the Canadian embassy in Beijing after he sang the theme song The Heroes in the Canadian animated movie Snowtime!.

Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like social media platform in China, shows that Xu now has nearly 4.5 million followers.

The documentary, which aims to commemorate his Asian tour, has been watched more than 2.5 million times on the video-streaming site v.qq.com.

Many posts on Zhihu, China's equivalent of Quora, discuss the popularity of Xu and predict the possibility of the young star becoming a successor to Lu Han or Kris Wu, two of the most bankable young stars in China.

But Xu, who is now writing his undergraduate thesis at the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts, may not be ready for that.

"I've never thought too much about the future. I try to do my best in my current job," he says.