Footage of a 109-year-old man in Thailand went viral. Now TikTok is flooded with hoaxes, memes, and misinformation about him.

• Videos of a 109-year-old man keep going viral on TikTok.
• The clips have been reuploaded with claims he is actually 163, or a 399-year-old woman.

Footage of an elderly man in an orange robe has been flooding TikTok users' feeds as videos of him lying down and interacting with family members keep going viral. But as the videos spread, they have been reposted across the internet along with inaccurate information and unfounded rumors about the man.

The original account that posted the videos is called @auyary13. It appears to be run by a woman named Auyary, who has one million followers and until recently typically posted food videos.

In October 2021, she began uploading videos of the man and now posts about him almost exclusively. The account has received as many as 100 million views on a single video posted in February 2022 which shows him placing his hands on a young girl, and viewers flooded the comments asking about his age and backstory, with many speculating he is a monk.

The videos have sparked huge amounts of online conversation, and have recirculated across different platforms and accounts. But they've also spread contradictory rumors and misinformation, leading to confusion around the truth behind the viral footage.

The original videos purportedly show a 109-year-old man living in Thailand

The videos that have gone the most viral on @auyary13's account have millions of views and show the man being cared for and looking frail in a wheelchair or lying in bed.

The account owner also has an Instagram profile, where she posts pictures of the man, who she says is named Luang Pho Yai. In a TikTok caption from January 2022, which was written in Thai, she said she planned to check him into Dan Khun Thot hospital in Western Thailand.

When her TikTok videos started to go viral, many commenters asked how old the man was. She responded to one of the comments in English on March 2, saying "According to his stories he said he was 109 years old."

@auyary13 did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Videos of the man recirculated on social media, alongside claims he was far older

On February 20, a video from auyary13's TikTok account was reposted by a YouTube channel called ZyKai media. It added different music over the original clip, and the video was titled, "Man claims to be the oldest person in the world at 163 years old!" The video now has 36,000 views.

According to Guinness World Records, the oldest person alive is Kane Tanake, a 119-year-old woman in Japan. Guinness lists the oldest person to have ever lived as dying at 122 years old in 1997. Claims that the man in the video is 163 years old would make him the oldest person in history.

On TikTok, an account called @briar_cares has also reshared the clips, gaining 30 million views on a single video that claimed the man is a 399-year-old woman. The account posts various clips of people it claims are the oldest in the world.

The account has 437,000 followers, and its bio says, "I post about elderly people and beauty hacks." The account does not appear to be affiliated with a British home-care company called Briarcare, and neither the owner of the account nor the company immediately responded to Insider's request for comment.

The videos have turned into a meme which may have contributed to its virality

Part of the reason why @auyary13's TikToks have circulated so widely may be due to a high volume of comments — according to TikTok, the more likes and comments a video receives, the more likely it is to appear on other users' feeds.

The account's most-watched video has 239,000 comments, many of which follow similar joke and meme formats, referring to the man as "bro" and referencing historical events to comment on his age.

Top comments with 30,000 likes each said, "Bro has Jesus in his phone contacts" and "Bro finished reading the terms and conditions." Similar comments appear on the @briar_cares TikTok page.

Some comments have continued to speculate and exaggerate about the man's age, saying he looks like he's "919" or "100,000" years old.

The original user is still posting images and videos about the man

On Instagram and TikTok, @auyary13 continues to share photos and clips of the man, as people visit him in the hospital.

Many commenters have referred to the man as a monk. From Instagram photos, there appear to be Buddhist statues in his hospital room, and some of the captions and photos on Instagram reference monks caring for him, though it's unclear if the man is a monk himself, or if the hospital provided the statues.

On TikTok, @auyary13's most recent videos are still receiving millions of views. One post from March 12, which shows the man eating a piece of fruit, has been viewed more than nine million times.

For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.