British teen comparing himself to Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch harassed by Chinese fans

A British teenage boy has been deluged by thousands of Chinese netizens after posting photos of himself on a social networking site boasting of his resemblance to Benedict Cumberbatch, star of BBC drama Sherlock.

His account on Instragram, an online photo-sharing site, has since emerged in the last few days as a “must go-to site” for fans of the British actor, who has garnered a huge following in China for his lead role as Sherlock Holmes in the popular detective show.

The Instagram handle and site link for the boy, who describes himself as being 16 and from the UK, quickly spread across Chinese cyberspace as he posted several self-portraits, or ‘selfies,’ on his website, and was not shy about comparing himself to the British movie star.

Some of his photos are composites of Cumberbatch’s stage photos and his own self-portraits, placed side by side. He also uploaded pictures of Cumberbatch which he labelled as ‘selfie’ and labelled another picture of the actor, which appeared to be a screen grab from the BBC motoring show Top Gear, with the comment: “Watching myself on TV”.

Sherlock fans, Cumberbatch admirers and other curious online users quickly logged onto his account to leave thousands of comments, of which the majority were in the Chinese language.

“You should post videos of you pretending to be Sherlock. Say some quotes, please?” one said.