Over the past two months, celebrity look-alike competitions have spread across the world, infecting cities with a spirit of lighthearted competition. On TikTok, flyers advertising these contests and gatherings of people eager to see their favorite icons’ doppelgangers have gone viral.
The phenomenon began with the highly publicized Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest in New York City on Oct. 27. Organized by YouTuber Anthony Po, the event was promoted with flyers across the city and further amplified by social media posts. The contest quickly gained attention, attracting thousands of RSVPs via Partiful and offering a generous award of $50 to the person who could best embody the actor. In an impressive turnout — amidst an arrest and even an appearance from Chalamet himself — 21-year-old Miles Mitchell was crowned the winner.
Surprisingly, the Chalamet look-alike competition snowballed into a movement that inspired others, even across seas. Publications like Vulture and Buzzfeed have been attempting to keep up with and report on the influx of look-alike competitions propagating themselves, making local communities go wild. Soon after the Chalamet contest, a Paul Mescal look-alike contest was held in Dublin on Nov. 7, followed by a Harry Styles contest in London on Nov. 9.
“Visibility begets visibility, so when you start to see the attention lavished on the Timothée Chalamet contest, it’s not surprising that others have sprung up,” Brooke Erin Duffy, a professor at Cornell University, told Rolling Stone. “What’s interesting to me is the contests I’ve seen have focused on men, which feels significant, particularly given the histories of surveillance and scrutiny of women, celebrities and their bodies and [physiques]. This seems to be kind of upending that cultural norm in a really interesting way.”
On Nov. 10, a Dev Patel look-alike contest was held in San Francisco, providing South Asian representation to a trend otherwise dominated by white actors. On Nov. 16, there was a Jeremy Allen White contest in Chicago, and on Nov. 17, a former member of One Direction, Zayn Malik, had his own look-alike contest in Brooklyn.
In a change of pace from real-life celebrities to fictional characters, a Patrick and Art from “Challengers” contest was held in Los Angeles on Nov. 24. On the same day, venturing into the realm of K-Pop, a Jungkook contest was held in Chicago.
While on the surface, these look-alike competitions seem like light-hearted events, many have pointed out their cultural function. As explained in an article from The Mary Sue, they provide a temporary third space for people to convene and engage with their community.
“These look-alike contests provide us with an opportunity to relate and form new relationships with people we might hitherto not know and would never cross paths with and wouldn’t even say hello to them in a gym, in a club, in a bar, in a supermarket or anywhere,” British sociologist and celebrity cultural critic Ellis Cashmore told CNN. “But the fact is, they share a common interest, and that is celebrity.”
These competitions may even be a coping response and distraction from the 2024 election, functioning as a way to let off steam. Either way, they blur the oftentimes rigid line separating internet spaces and real communities. As with all internet trends, the fuel that remains in the look-alike competition tank will inevitably fizzle out soon, but this trend is sure to be memorialized as a definitive moment and end to 2024.
Tessa Kang is an Arts & Entertainment intern for the fall 2024 quarter. She can be reached at tokang@uci.edu.
Edited by Alaina Retodo and Jaheem Conley.
