Pang Mailang was born in rural northwestern China, where he grew up in a modest farming family. From an early age, he was obsessed with pop music — particularly Michael Jackson, whose influence defined Pang's style for years to come. Even as a teenager working odd jobs in city KTVs, he dreamed of being "China's most international pop star."

He wasn't trained. He didn't have a studio. But he had a notebook full of strange, emotional lyrics and the will to stand out.

In 2013, Pang showed up in Beijing with a suitcase full of demo tracks — weird, off-key songs he'd written himself. One of them was a haunting, hypnotic track called "My Skate Shoes", about a boy searching for the perfect pair of sneakers so he could dance in the moonlight.

It wasn't technically "good music." But it was unforgettable.

Released in 2014, My Skate Shoes went viral almost overnight — its repetitive lyrics, amateurish autotune, and bizarre sincerity turned it into one of the most iconic "internet meme songs" in Chinese web history. Netizens laughed, looped, and remixed the song into oblivion. Pang Mailang became a walking contradiction: part joke, part genius, and fully unforgettable.

As quickly as he rose, Pang began to unravel. The fame, the pressure, and a legal fallout with his record label left him isolated and increasingly erratic. By 2021, he was reportedly diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Public opinion, which once found him hilarious, now turned to shock, pity, and reflection.

He was no longer just a meme. He became a cautionary tale of fame, exploitation, and mental health in the digital age.

In 2025, against all odds, Pang Mailang returned.

He reappeared on livestreams. He booked intimate live shows in small venues across China. Dressed in his trademark suit, sunglasses, and slicked-back hair — his voice cracked but passionate — he sang the songs that once made the internet laugh… and this time, people listened differently.

New tracks like Where Will I Stay and The Power of Them hinted at deeper themes: aging, regret, the loneliness of digital fame. It wasn't a redemption arc. It was something rawer: a man still clinging to his dream, still singing it out loud, even if the world had moved on.

Pang's music is its own genre — a strange fusion of electronic loops, spoken word, bad pitch, and haunting poetry. He repeats lines like mantras, creating hypnotic rhythms that sound both amateurish and deeply emotional. His lyrics are often nonsensical on the surface but packed with underground yearning: lost youth, urban alienation, wild dreams, sudden violence.

He wasn't cool. He wasn't polished. But he was real in a way mainstream pop never could be.

To some, Pang Mailang is a walking meme — the sound of a broken karaoke machine echoing down a neon-lit alley.

To others, he's the voice of a forgotten China: the hustlers, the dreamers, the misfits with notebooks full of hope.

His infamous line — "摩擦摩擦，在这光滑的地上摩擦" (Friction, friction, on this smooth ground) — is now burned into the brain of a generation, quoted everywhere from parody videos to gallery walls. It means nothing. It means everything.

In the age of AI pop stars and algorithmic perfection, Pang Mailang still matters. Not because he's polished — but because he never pretended to be.

He's a glitch in the matrix. A strange, sad, beautiful reminder that sometimes the internet makes icons by accident — and those are the ones that last.