BEIJING — A mysterious blogger who tantalized fellow Chinese with a microblog of candid snapshots of China's new leader apparently taken by citizen journalists during Xi Jinping's travels has revealed his identity — and it's not what many expected.

Contrary to speculation that Xi's own team had created the microblog as a way of humanizing the new leader, Zhang Hongming has told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview that he is a college dropout and migrant worker.

He says he is a genuine fan of Xi, but that he also wants to make him more accessible to the general public. Zhang says Chinese leaders generally appear out of reach for the masses, and that he wants to portray Xi as an ordinary person.