Fame-thirsting or society-nursing? What the recent lookalike contest trend has revealed about 2020s celebrity culture

There’s a chance that someone has told you you’re the spitting image of a celebrity at one point or another. You might even have quietly convinced yourself of that fact. I had the Timothée Chalamet compliment bestowed upon me once – apparently, it was just the hair, but that’s good enough for me. Many of said ‘likenesses’, though, are in truth, nothing more than passing resemblances – if even that.

In the past month, such wannabe delusion has erupted in cities across the world, resulting in a mass frenzy of lookalike competitions which have flooded and clogged everyone’s social media feeds. The frantic crowding of city squares by Generation Z hopefuls eager to flaunt their professed celeb-ability, has captured the hearts of onlookers both in the urban vicinity and those addictively scrolling TikTok and X at home. But what is it exactly that has made these doppelgänger-fests so popular at this precise moment? And what impulse has suddenly driven young people to descend on these competitions in droves? Are they perhaps looking to augment their internet footprint with a few minutes of fame? What is certain, is that these competitions are going extremely viral, and we are relishing it.

Contestants have been yearning to become their idols, not merely appear like them. One might say they’re fame-thirsting to the extreme

Timothée Chalamet rocking up to his own lookalike contest in New York City in October this year kickstarted the phenomenon, and thereafter the trend only gathered pace. Fans are hoping the real-life personalities involved will materialise somewhere in the crowd like the Dune star. Some jokingly asked for contests to be held in their bedrooms, in order to find the next best option to the subject of their swoons.

Celebrity mania today is as prevalent as it has always been. During the 1960s, the celebrity zeitgeist ‘Beatlemania’ swept the world. Lookalike competitions aren’t even new — the 1930s saw a string of Shirley Temple contests. This year’s tidal wave of contests, however, has been of a different magnitude. Contestants have been yearning to become their idols, not merely appear like them. One might say they’re fame-thirsting to the extreme.

Seeing self-styled Paul Mescals, Zayn Maliks, and now Zendayas joining together in a sea of celebrity replicants somewhat brings out the cynic in me. The cash awards in these contests essentially go to the least unique individual, to the person whose most valued asset on the day is their ability to impersonate another person and exploit some stage time in the spotlight. And of course, the cash comes second to the most coveted prize: the guise of fame.

I’ll stop the miser act there. This phenomenon has, otherwise, been a force for good with the contests’ joyful and relaxed energy emanating across the social media landscape and beyond. After all, the contestants have first and foremost been enjoying themselves, and we have witnessed a beautiful coming-together of fandoms in recent weeks, bringing us a well-needed laugh in trying times. Flinders University associate lecturer Katharine Perrotta has said that “these contests offer an option for a non-threatening way to engage in public desire.” They have also, I think, provided an outlet for alienated young people to feel like main characters for once, even if in the guise of others. To see the lookalikes (of varying success levels) going outdoors and sharing in fancy-dress bonanzas in a laudable attempt to make their immortal mark on pop culture has been endearing. Especially in city squares that would have been deserted and dead silent a few years ago and which have now been enlivened with youthful energy by this more welcome pandemic – a lookalike pandemic.

The contests, then, have been eyed by some as celebrity ‘taster sessions’ or ‘trial runs’

The Sun journalist, Tom Bryden, who participated in a London Harry Styles contest in November (and has since had his face plastered everywhere on major news sites), provided The Boar with some valuable insight on what it was like to enter the event. Tom was very open about why he entered. “I knew it would make a great article”, he told The Boar. However, there was another, more inquisitive motivation. “I also wanted to learn about this moment in culture not just by looking at it from the outside, but by experiencing it from the inside.”

In the thick of the thronging crowds, the sensation of stardom came easy to Tom, who admits he bears no resemblance to the former One Direction star. Writing for The Sun, Tom posed the question: “Can a man who looks nothing like Harry Styles win a Harry Styles lookalike contest?” The answer was, in the end, a resounding ‘no’. Participating in the event was “very surreal,” Tom told The Boar. “When a dozen photographers were around me taking my picture, and I was being dragged left and right for interviews, I got a taste of what actual celebrity is like.” The eventual winner, 22-year-old musician Oscar Journeaux, may have desired exactly this, admitting that he entered for “publicity” for his career. The contests, then, have been eyed by some as celebrity ‘taster sessions’ or ‘trial runs’. Journeaux stated that “people want to think there’s a deeper meaning to these events, but really we’re all just bored millennials and Gen Z looking for something to do.”

Pondering on the wider causes of the upsurge in lookalike events, Tom told The Boar: “I think they show we have a very intimate relationship with celebs in this day and age.” He added: “We’re a generation that’s had social media since it’s been a proper thing, and over time have grown up with these celebs and turned our liking of them into part of our personality.” Tom has found it both “surreal” and “funny” to see snapshots of him as Styles everywhere online. Look up an article about the wider trend, and you will almost certainly see him smoothly posing for the jostling photographers. “I know I wasn’t there to win,” he admitted, “but no one else knows that.”

Image credit: Tom Bryden (pictured on the right)

“It’s fun to have been a part of this moment in our culture,” Tom concluded, “and to have it preserved forever in magazines and media outlets.” Perhaps, this last point is exactly why these contests have sprouted up now. There are few better ways to promote fun and togetherness, and these competitions are a sign that, after a dreary start to the decade, we are so back. The trend has naturally ebbed away in recent weeks; as ever, social media finds its new darlings when something feels exhausted and overdone. But we can all glance back at this random time capsule with fondness and remember it for the delusions of grandeur it elicited from young people the world over, as much the dead ringers as the futile hopefuls.