TheQuartering [8/4/2021]
Chris Chan has a weird and troubled history.
On Sunday, the internet personality Christine Weston Chandler, also known as Chris Chan, was arrested and charged with incest after a leaked audio recording purported to include Chandler, 39, admitting to having sex with her 79-year-old mother.
Chandler became notorious online for creating the early web meme “Sonichu,” an eerie blend of the video game cartoon characters Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog.
Chandler is known for being one of the biggest targets of trolling and cyberbullying on the internet.
According to the internet culture website KnowYourMeme, Chan has been active on the internet since 1999, but it wasn’t until 2007 that she surged into viral fame because of trolling. A picture of Sonichu was reportedly shared on the fringe message board 4chan, which led to a derisive article being written about Chan on the pseudo-Wikipedia-troll database Encyclopedia Dramatica.
According to KnowYourMeme, Chan discovered the article soon after it was written and spent months trying to edit it to reflect a more positive image of her.