Timothée Chalamet, Paul Mescal, Zendaya — US and UK celebrity look-alike contests seem to be more than just a weekend fad. Despite the sporadic presence of and Questionable media coverageEvents keep happening, sometimes with repeat contests for different celebrities in different cities. Disappointed that Jack Schlossberg doesn’t have a similar look New York? No worries, the ultimate Schlossberg doppelgänger might get their chance to shine Washington, DC, this weekend.
Why now, you may ask? What strange burble in the zeitgeist has somehow manifested itself in identical Chalamets lines? Is it that we can’t get enough of Hollywood’s “it” boys? Is it, as a society, that we are primarily tired of living online? Is it that we’re all thirsty for more fun, low-stakes events that are free and open to the public?
I turned to a Zain Malik look-alike contest for answers. Natalie Miller, a social producer in Bushwick, told me, “I was probably just going to stay home, but I was like, no, some divine spirit is calling me to this lookalike contest.” Miller and a friend competed last Sunday at Maria Hernandez Park.
The winner, 29-year-old Shiv Patel, seems poised for glory; he to say Brooklyn Mag Joy “Adds to my lore.” Naturally, Miller got a picture.
No matter how tongue-in-cheek the event and participants are, the cheer they’re creating is real. “Everybody was having such a good time, and it was 30 minutes, but it was the best part of everybody’s day,” Miller said.
It’s been a minute since people took to the streets for fun. While the flash mobs of the early 2010s were considered cringe-worthy, viral dance memes in the mid-10s As a result of injuryAnd Pokémon Go may have last few years Inadvertently help our dystopian nightmareThese look-alike contests seem completely normal so far (Well, despite that one guy has been arrested.)
“[T]”The Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest shows that people yearn for weird town events like we live in on Gilmore Girls,” e.g. A viral post do it
Indeed, there are plenty of precedents for precisely this kind of eccentric celebration. This moment harkens back to a pre-internet era, when people were arguably bored enough and desperate for entertainment — or, Jeremy O. As Harris do it“The Great Depression Era Coded.”
In other words, we’re seeking refuge from our current reality in wholesome, mindless community spectator events. Historian and folklorist Matthew Alzio Vox noted that such craze historically arose during times of rapid technological and social change—changes that created public anxiety and desire for community and general entertainment.
“We think of the Great Depression as an economic event, but it was also a psychological event,” Alzio said. “We are going through a psychological phenomenon right now. There is an appetite for diversion.”
Author of Algeo PedestrianAbout the hugely popular walking competition of the 1870s and ’80s, where crowds would fill huge stadiums, including Madison Square Garden, to watch other people walk for hours.
“People are looking for new and interesting forms of entertainment,” says Alzio, “something that everyone can relate to.” As for what viewers get out of it, Algeo admits that, along with engaging entertainment, contests like the walking contest and the lookalike are “a bit dry looking.” He suggests one reason people attend events is that they “get a perverse pleasure in seeing other people express themselves in public.” While ironic pleasure may certainly be a factor, Miller suggests a purer motivation.
“It really felt like a meet and greet with a guide,” Miller, a longtime guide, told me. “I’m so nervous going up [Patel]. It’s fun to experience that joy again.”
One might assume that the primary appeal of this look-alike contest would be to that particular celebrity’s fandom, but this is not the case; Miller said she was pleasantly surprised that most of the people attending the Zen competition seemed to be locals rather than fans. “It felt like a local community gathering and it was a lot of fun,” Miller said of the crowd. Algeo told me the local community’s appeal is understandable.
“It reminds me of how the famous walker Edward Payson Weston would go to these small towns and do these challenges where he would walk 100 miles to someone’s barn in 24 hours,” Alzio said. “Everyone had to come out and see it because it was live entertainment, and it really brought the community together. This is kind of the same thing. It gives people a reason to get out of their homes and share an experience with other people in real time and in real life.” He compared the current craze to flag-sitting in the ’20s and ’30s, when the public would look at other people sitting, and where Above the flagpole.
“It sounds silly, but I think the fact that it’s silly makes it more attractive to people,” Alzio said. “Especially in this day and age, everything is so intense and polarized and fractured. It’s hard to conjure up many negative emotions about a celebrity look-alike contest.” Considering depression, it probably doesn’t hurt that these events are free in the current inflationary era.
There is also perhaps a little bit of stunt myth making ahead. The flagpole-sitting craze began when a theater hired a Hollywood stuntman named Shipwreck Kelly to sit atop a flagpole to promote a new movie. From there, the trend went viral. Likewise, look-alike competition can be born out of self-promotion as much as healthy community fun. Host of the first look-alike contest, the Timothée Chalamet Contest Timothée Chalamet himself famously attendedAnthony Poe, a New York-based YouTuber with nearly 2 million followers tuning in to his stunt videos, which range from sneaking into cults to creating miraculous scenes. He quickly moved on from the chaos of the look-alike competition to plan his next big event: a Boxing match Between his alter-ego, the Cheeseball Man, and a mysterious newcomer named the Cornhead Killer.
Still, it would seem that, so far, the Cornhead Killer has nothing to do with Jens on Sunday in the Park.
“Seeing a bunch of people standing in a straight line is objectively fun,” Miller assures me.
Miller’s uneasy joy in mingling with his fellow directors and fellow Bushwick community members would seem to support Algeo’s hypothesis that, ultimately, “people like to see other people’s things.”
“Whatever they’re doing, there’s probably some humanitarian activity that you can get a crowd for.”
