A new pop culture trend emerged during the end of 2024: the celebrity look-alike contest. The premise of these contests is that they are open-to-all competitions held in public spaces, in which contestants can compete to win a prize (usually $50) due to their resemblance to a celebrity.
The origin of the trend can be traced back to a post on X, with a photo of the flier advertising the Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest. The contest took place on Oct. 27 at 1 p.m. in Washington Square Park in New York City, NY. The winner of the contest was promised a fifty-dollar cash prize. After the post of the flier went viral, the contest amassed a large audience, with hundreds of people waiting to see who would be crowned the winner.
The contest quickly got out of hand due to the size of the crowd, with the police getting involved and arresting four people, including a Chalamet look-alike. As the contest was happening live, fans were being updated on X. To the surprise of fans everywhere, Chalamet made an appearance at the contest. Although he did not enter the contest, he posed for photos with fans. Of all the Chalamet look-alikes, the crowned winner was 21-year-old Miles Mitchell from upstate New York.
With the Chalamet look-alike crowned, this was only the beginning of the worldwide saga of celebrity look-alike contests. The next look-alike contest would cross international waters with the Paul Mescal look-alike contest in Dublin, Ireland. An account on TikTok by the username “paulmescallookalike” posted a video promoting the event. This contest took place on Nov. 7 in Smithfield Square. Six Mescal look-alikes took part in the contest with Jack Wall O’Reilly being declared the winner. Unlike the Chalamet look-alike contest, Mescal was unable to attend the contest due to conflicting schedules with promotion for “Gladiator II.”
The journey of look-alike contests continues in Europe with the Harry Styles look-alike contest taking place on Nov. 9 in London in Soho Square. The contest was promoted via a pop culture reporter on X, PopCrave. This look-alike contest had a different public reception than the Chalamet and Mescal contests, as the competitors in Styles’ lookalike contest shared less resemblance to Styles. The contest had twelve competitors and the winner was Oscar Journeaux.
The next celebrity in line for a look-alike contest was British actor, Dev Patel. This contest took place on Nov. 10, in San Francisco, California, in Dolores Park. This was fans’ response to the celebrity look-alike movement being centered around white male celebrities. The Dev Patel look-alike contest was originally envisioned as a Robert Pattinson look-alike contest, but after some reflection, the creators of the contest, Sitara Bellam, Tasnim Khandakar and Sahana Rangarajan wanted to highlight a South Asian celebrity to reflect their identities.
The creators were shocked when over five hundred people responded to the flier they created advertising the competition. The winner of the contest was Jaipreet Hundal, a 25-year-old from San Jose, California.
As of writing this article, the series of celebrity look-alike competitions is ongoing. From PopCrave on X, a Zayn Malik look-alike contest happened on Nov. 17. According to FilmUpdates on X, a Jeremy Allen White look-alike competition in Chicago is in the works, as well as a look-alike contest in Los Angeles for Art Donaldson and Patrick Zwieg, the fictional characters from Luca Guadagnino’s film “Challengers” played by Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor.
Personally, as a pop culture-obsessed fangirl, I am a huge fan of look-alike contests. I think these look-alike contests are a positive way for the community to join together and have fun discussing celebrity doppelgangers. However, I do think it is worth noting the lack of female presence within these look-alike contests. With the exception of the Zendaya look-alike contest, these look-alike contests are very male-centric, especially focusing on white men.
Just like every internet trend before, unfortunately, the celebrity look-alike contest trend died and was left in 2024. While death is inevitable for all trends, I still believe there is value in remembering and documenting these pop culture trends for the future, especially when it is a trend as crazy as this one. RIP to the celebrity look-alike contest (2024-2024).