Internet Weirdly Obsessed With Taiwanese McDonald's Worker
A McDonald's employee in Taiwan is getting some awkward attention for her looks.
— -- A McDonald's worker in Taiwan said she's surprised by the global attention she is receiving, just because of the way she looks.
Wei Han Xu became an Internet sensation in the past year or so in Taiwan for her "doll-like" features, but the attention has recently come stateside.
Known as WeiWei, Xu has appeared on Taiwanese game shows. She has 41,700 followers on Instagram.
She wrote today in an Instagram post: "In these few days, I received a lot of message from people that had different backgrounds. I was shocked because in my point of view it is just an old news In Taiwan. I would like to say thank you to all the attentions [sic], thank you so much to concern about me."
The doll-like comparisons were seemingly sparked by Xu’s wearing what appears to be costumes on the job.
A spokeswoman for McDonald's told ABC News: "McDonald’s Taiwan has been organizing costume parties in our restaurants since 2012 to build a fun work environment. Crew and managers are encouraged to show their creativity with their outfits. Every year, these festivities have created much buzz and fun even with our customers."
But Leslie Bow, English and Asian-American studies professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, called the employee's following "quite bizarre," noting the fetishistic aspect of a fascination with a woman who looks like a doll.
"While colloquially we think of fetishism as evoking women’s objectification, this case of fetishism also evokes Freudian notions of the uncanny: we feel unease when we’re unsure if something is alive," Bow told ABC News via email.
"Fetishism is also about substituting the desired object for the person … But I do also think that the Asian part of this story is interesting: almost as if McDonald’s is very comfortable with the sexualization of Asian women, something that it would not dare to do here."
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