2024 look-alike contests

In late 2024, multiple news outlets reported a large rise in the prevalence of look-alike contests across the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, attributed to the initial popularity of a Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest in October that year. Celebrities at the center of these contests included Paul Mescal, Jeremy Allen White, Zendaya and political figure Jack Schlossberg, though fictional characters such as Tommy Shelby were also included as well as other figures such as a suspect in the killing of Brian Thompson.

While look-alike contests have existed since the early 1900s at the latest, the contests, often advertised using flyers and held in town squares, and mostly held in the wake of the 2024 United States presidential election, sparked various responses and analysis as to their sudden rise in popularity.

Timothée Chalamet Lookalike Contest of 2024

Timothée Chalamet

The initial event, named the Timothée Chalamet Lookalike Contest of 2024, was held in Washington Square Park in Manhattan, New York by YouTuber Anthony Po on October 27, 2024, the same day as a Donald Trump rally at Madison Square Garden prior to the 2024 United States presidential election. Po, a 23-year-old YouTuber with over 1.8 million followers, had previously gained online attention for eating cheese balls as "Cheeseball Man" in Union Square.

To advertise the event, Po posted flyers around New York which featured QR codes that led to an anonymous invite on website Partiful, causing speculation on social media and over 2,000 RSVPs on this invite. On the campaigning platform Cajole, a page was created which offered to pay $5,000 to charity if Chalamet himself attended and competed in the contests; this reached its goal on October 23. On October 26, a day before the Chalamet contest, Po hosted a contest for look-alikes of the YouTuber Kai Cenat, which 20 to 50 people attended.

Several hundred people attended the event itself, an unexpectedly large number for its organizers. Several women attended the event with signs and t-shirts that declared that they were single or included their phone numbers. Prior to the contest itself beginning, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) gave a dispersal order due to a lack of an event permit. Po arrived riding a penny-farthing bicycle and dressed as Charlie Chaplin; he led part of the group to the nearby Mercer Playground, by New York University, to begin the event. Back at Washington Square Park, the real Timothée Chalamet made a brief appearance, posing for pictures with the various look-alikes for less than a minute before leaving. The NYPD detained four people, including one look-alike contestant for disorderly conduct; he was placed in handcuffs and put in a patrol car.

Contestants included a corgi in a wig nicknamed "Timothée Corglamet", as well as multiple look-alikes dressed as Chalamet's characters from Wonka and Dune, and one contestant as Chalamet's Bob Dylan from the upcoming A Complete Unknown. The contestants were reduced to four finalists, all of which were asked about their proficiency in French, plans to improve the world and romantic intentions with Kylie Jenner. 21-year-old Miles Mitchell won the $50 prize for dressing as Chalamet's Willy Wonka; another contestant claimed that Mitchell won because he was giving out chocolate, though Po credited Mitchell's "charisma". Mitchell was also given a 5-foot-tall comically large trophy worth $250.

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation fined Po $500 after the event. He has stated he does not have the intention to host any other look-alike contests as "people would know it was [him]." Chalamet's team offered to pay the fine, and relayed a message from the actor: "They basically [said] like, 'We thought it was awesome. Thanks so much, It was all good and fun' ". Po declined their offer, as the money was already covered by Partiful. Production costs for the event ascended to $4,000. The contest was later parodied on Saturday Night Live.

Following contests

Numerous similar contests took place the following November. Many of these contests were similarly held in public squares and advertised with flyers. On November 21, Rolling Stone reported that "dozens more contests are scheduled between now and the end of the year."

November

The Dublin Paul Mescal contest was the first notable event to follow the initial Chalamet contest

• Two Paul Mescal contests took place; in Smithfield Square, Dublin on November 7, and in Hoxton, London on November 21.
  • The Dublin contest was initially advertised by a TikTok account under the name @paulmescallookalike. Of 7 contestants, the contest was won by 25-year-old Jack Wall O’Reilly. He was dubbed "Earbuds Paul" as he had copied Mescal's signature use of earphones, and was awarded a choice of "20 euro or three pints". Mescal congratulated O'Reilly after his win in a surprise call on BBC Radio 2.
  • The London contest, held in the Howl at the Moon pub in Hoxton, which offered free mullet haircuts and tattoos. Contestants were asked to saying a line in an Irish accent, 'split the G' on a pint of Guinness and measure the length of their shorts. Prizes for the winner, Connor Ryan, were a £20 Lidl voucher and the opportunity to turn on the pub's Christmas lights.
• A Harry Styles contest was organized in London's Soho Square on November 9 by journalist Katrina Mirpuri. It featured 12 contestants and a £50 prize, and attracted around 500 spectators. 22-year-old musician Oscar Journeaux won and was given his prize by Eyal Booker.

Dev Patel's contest attempted to bring South Asian representation

• A Dev Patel contest was hosted on November 10 in San Francisco's Dolores Park. Its organizers had originally planned a Robert Pattinson contest, but recognized that the contestants thus far had only centered around white celebrities and sought to represent a South Asian celebrity. Contestants danced Patel's dance from Slumdog Millionaire. It was won by Jaipreet Hundal; he received $50 and a statue from Patel's film Monkey Man. Internet activity around this event was comparatively sparse. Patel later said he was "surprised more than five people showed up," and that "hopefully, [he was] just the gateway to this happening to all sorts of brilliant actors of different races and genders".

The Jeremy Allen White contest in Chicago featured over 50 contestants

• Two Jeremy Allen White contests took place on November 17; one in Chicago and one in Washington Square Park in New York.
  • The Chicago contest featured over 50 contestants, many of which copied White's appearance in The Bear. Hundreds of spectators attended. 37-year-old mental health therapist Ben Shabad won, taking home $50 and a pack of cigarettes.
  • The New York contest, in front of the Washington Square Arch, gathered at least 7 contestants and a relatively light crowd. Its organizer failed to appear, so a crowd member improvised the votes and found a cigarette from the audience for the winner, 28-year-old Andrew Hadad.
• A Zayn Malik contest in Maria Hernandez Park in Brooklyn on the same day was won by 29-year-old Shiv Patel, who received $50 cash or a free tattoo. 26-year-old Jaz Arnold, partly organized it for the chance to "find somebody cute," but later said that "a lot of [the contestants] honestly were either taken or gay, or had their girlfriends force them to enter." Online commentators said the finalists did not look like Malik, though contestants received thousands of new followers on social media,
• A Zendaya contest on November 20, was held during a bomb cyclone at Wilma Chan Park in Oakland, California, less than a mile from where Zendaya attended Oakland School for the Arts. It was also organized through Partiful, and mutual aid was collected during the event for organizations including Food Not Bombs and Friends of the Congo. Around 50 fans attended and seven people competed, with two of them being willing to dance to Zendaya's song "Replay". Zainab Bansfield won, and received prizes including $40, shampoo and conditioner, and chocolates. It was the first of these viral contests to feature a woman as its subject.

The Jacob Elordi contest in Melbourne lacked any initial contestants

• A Jacob Elordi contest on November 23 on the lawn of the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia was attended by around 24 spectators and initially no contestants, leaving organizers to search the park for possible contestants. A man named Maxie, who had been found on a bench, won the $50 prize.
• A Tommy Shelby contest also took place outside the Bull Ring in Birmingham city centre on November 23, with a £500 shopping spree as a prize. Shelby is a fictional character played by Cillian Murphy in the TV show Peaky Blinders. 66-year-old Derek Brennan was named the winner through applause and judges' opinions.
• A Jungkook contest was held on 24 November in Ping Tom Park in Chicago. Jungkook is a member of South Korean boy band BTS. YouTuber Andrew Alexander won and received a bottle of soju and $20.
• A Glen Powell contest took place on November 24 at Auditorium Shores park in Powell's hometown of Austin, Texas. It was organized by a University of Texas at Austin grad student. Powell appeared in a video message for the event and announced that a family member of the winner would receive a cameo appearance in his next movie. Nearly 20 men competed, and were judged by Powell's mother and aunt. Max Braunstein, who had dressed as Powell's character in Top Gun: Maverick, won. As well as the cameo, he won a black cowboy hat, a medal, and a year's supply of Torchy's Tacos, and Powell called to congratulate him.
• A Shrek contest was held on the weekend of November 23 in Los Angeles' Echo Park by content creator Ka5sh, who had previously established the travelling Shrek Rave event. Contestants painted themselves with green face paint and wore tunics and ogre ears.
• A Heath Ledger contest on the same weekend was held in Camperdown Park in Sydney, which attracted a relatively large crowd compared to the Melbourne event. Contestants were judged on their impersonations of Ledger's lines, as well as their singing abilities, and they were additionally judged in "look moody holding film camera", "joker beatboxing", and "whose beer is the coldest" rounds. An unusual $51 prize was given, instead of the usual $50, to winner Jude Bailey.

The Jack Schlossberg contest was unusual as it was held for a political figure

• A Jack Schlossberg contest gathered at Meridian Hill Park in Washington D.C. on the afternoon of November 24; Schlossberg is the only grandson of former president John F. Kennedy. A total of 1,200 individuals had indicated their intention to attend the event, resulting in approximately 200 spectators. The initial 14 contestants were whittled down to 7 and then to 4 by acclamation, with the contestants who received the most applause moving to the next round, largely answering trivia questions about Schlossberg. 25-year-old Daniel Bonomo won the contest, receiving $50 in cash, a $100 one-year membership to Zipcar, and a $100 gift card for Salazar Restaurant. Co-organizer Ruchika Sharma said she hoped the event brought "a little levity in D.C. right now," following the election of Donald Trump.
• A Shohei Ohtani contest, for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball player, was hosted by the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles on November 24. It was intended to celebrate the museum's new baseball exhibit. Joseph Ma won by an audience vote, winning a prize from the museum's gift shop and $17, which corresponded to Ohtani's jersey number.
• A Tom Holland contest was held on Boston Common on November 25. While Holland had been seen in Boston in the previous few days, he did not appear. 26-year-old Nick Anderson won, receiving $50 and a bag of British candy.
• A Nacho Libre contest, for the character played by Jack Black in the 2006 film of the same name, was held at Produce Goods in downtown Corpus Christi, Texas on November 29. There were three competitors including a 2-year-old, drawing a crowd of 50 people. 32-year-old Ryan Garza won $50 in cash, and the two runners-up took home items from the store.

December

Contests for Young Miko and Zendaya were rare examples of contests about women

• A Young Miko contest was hosted on December 4 by monthly residency party Preciosita. 27-year-old Daelyn Daniloff won by a unanimous vote, receiving $20, a trophy and a vibrator as prizes.
• A Rocky Balboa and Adrian Pennino contest took place on December 6 at the first annual RockyFest celebration in the University of Pennsylvania's ice rink arena, intended to replicate the characters' date scene in Rocky. Jason Carrion and Roxanne Carrion won a dinner at Victor Café, a hotel stay and a $250 certificate for a Rocky-themed gift shop.
• A contest for Boq, a fictional character in the 2024 film Wicked portrayed by Ethan Slater, was held in Washington Square Park on December 7. It was organized by TikTok user Molly Brown, who became known for expressing her dislike of the character.

A contest was held for Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of Brian Thompson

• A Luigi Mangione contest, for the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was held on December 7 in Washington Square Park, based on photos of the suspect which had been released by the New York City Police Department. This suspect was seen by some on social media as a folk hero. Around 6 men competed, drawing an audience of around 30 people who had seen fliers about the event posted on social media. One contestant wore a shirt that read "deny, defend, depose," words which had been found on ammunition at the murder scene. The anonymous winner of the contest, a 39-year-old who does data entry for a labor union, stated that he celebrated the gunman's actions, that it was important to get people to understand how people were hurting under the health care system, and that he planned to give half of the cash prize to Palestinian relief.
• A John F. Kennedy contest gathered on Boston Common on December 8; Michael John Gross won the $50 prize.

A Dan Campbell contest was held in a Detroit HopCat restaurant

• A Dan Campbell contest, for the head coach of the Detroit Lions, took place in a HopCat in Metro Detroit on December 8 after it was advertised with fliers. It drew 22 contestants. Four randomly selected judges scored the contestants from 1 to 10 in four categories; resemblance, style, energy and creativity. The five contestants who reached the final were then asked questions by the judges and the winner was decided by applause. It was won by 55-year-old machinist Jeff Randall, who received free Cosmik Fries at the restaurant for a year as well as a golden game ball, a reference to Campbell's tradition of giving balls to the best performers of the week. In a press conference, Campbell responded to the fliers, stating that "I don't know why you'd waste your time with that," and that "there's got to be better things to do unless the prize is something worth having. Is there a legitimate prize to it? Maybe I'll get in it." He did not appear at the contest.
• A Noah Kahan contest was held by the University of Vermont's program board on the green of its Dudley H. Davis Center on December 11. It drew a crowd of 150 to 200 people and 16 contestants of varying ages and genders, some of whom had painted-on beards. 28-year-old winner Sam Spanierman was noted for his particularly strong resemblance to Kahan, and received a vinyl copy of Kahan's album Stick Season.
• A Mark contest, for the rapper of South Korean boyband NCT, was held in Washington Square Park at 1:27 pm on December 13. Mark made a surprise arrival at the contest, though he was mobbed by fans and forced to leave early.
• A Bernie Sanders contest gathered eight contestants in Burlington, Vermont on December 14. Organiser Mike Trioli said that he held the contest because "we should celebrate someone not so much a celebrity in the world at a time like this," and that "Bernie's a unifier". One contestant replicated Sanders' outfit at the inauguration of Joe Biden. Miss Vermont 2024 Meera Seery, who had worked as a digital producer for Sanders, selected the first, second and third place winners. John Bronstein won and was given $17, which is Sanders' proposed federal minimum wage.

Drake contributed $10,000 to his own look-alike contest

• A Drake contest took place on December 14 at Casuals Cakery in Toronto. Prior to the contest, Drake himself wrote to the cakery that he was "adding 10 bands to the lookalike contest as the main prize." Contestants arrived as different versions of Drake, such as "Ozempic Drake". Anthony Po appeared at the competition dressed as Drake's son Adonis, though the real Drake did not appear. Makayla Chambers, nicknamed "Girl Drake", won the $10,000.

Responses and analysis

Anthony Po responded to the contests following his own, stating to Rolling Stone that "The election is behind us now, but everything really sucked, so to have something slightly interesting and fun, wholesome, and full of whimsy, was comforting. Every in-person thing costs money or it's too serious. Community is also something that you can find online but it's so different. People just want to be together in person and do something dumb. And this is a very low-barrier-to-entry way to do that."

British sociologist and cultural critic Ellis Cashmore commented to CNN that the rise in this type of contest "capture[d] something that we believe in the 21st century... That biology isn't destiny,” and that "humanity isn't fixed.” He also noted that the contests were a way to build community and "provide[d] us with an opportunity to relate and form new relationships with people we might hitherto not know and would never cross paths with". On social media, users came to a consensus that the contests were positive due to their ability to bring people out of their houses and into "third spaces" to form community. This was echoed by New York University digital culture expert Zari Taylor, who stated that "we really don't have a lot of third spaces left," that people craved "a shared purpose", also noting that there was a "balance between it being an in-person event and also knowing you'll see it online later." Alice Leppert, assistant professor of media and communications at Ursinus College, described the contests as "low-stakes environments where you can just go and you can observe, if you want to just observe, or you can be more involved." She additionally pointed out the "grassroots origins" of the contests which contrasts with the traditional organization of this type of event by publicity agents, magazines or film studios.

The events also received some commentary in relation to the presidential election on 6 November, which occurred after the Chalamet contest but before the other contests. Kaitlyn Tiffany of The Atlantic wrote that reason for the contests could be that they were "small reassurance that cities, many of which shifted dramatically rightward in the recent presidential election, are still the places that we want to believe they are—the closest approximation of America's utopian experiment, where people of all different origins and experiences live together in relative peace and harmony and, importantly, good fun." Playwright Jeremy O. Harris wrote on Twitter that the contests were "Great Depression era coded", and historian and folklorist Matthew Algeo concurred that they were a result of people "looking for new and interesting forms of entertainment," as a result of "a psychological event" for which he says there is "a hunger for diversion." Raven Smith of Vogue included the contests, as well as recent films Dune, Mescal's Gladiator II, and Wicked, in his assessment that "culturally, everything is a remake", and that "in some way, we all want the world to look like the world we already know."

Other commentators wrote of the contests' role in publicity, social media and dating culture, with Amanda Hess of The New York Times writng that "When photographic evidence of the events is posted online, the game transforms into an Erotic Photo Hunt, with onlookers zooming in on their favorite contestants and racing to identify them on social media."

Brooke Erin Duffy, a professor specializing in the creator economy and digital culture at Cornell University, noted the relevance of look-alike apps and TikTok filters that find celebrity matches to these events. She also described the events' focus on men rather than women in relation to "the histories of surveillance and scrutiny of women, celebrities and their bodies and physique", stating that the events were "upending that cultural norm in a really interesting way".

See also

• Hemingway Days