Earlier in 2024, the year’s first major lookalike contest turned into a riot. The nation turned their eyes on the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in NYC which had about 3,000 attendees, including Timmy himself. There were even multiple arrests at the event. Why did these events explode in popularity after that?
This October, the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in Washington Square Park got out of hand. The spark for the event was fanned in the form of the bizarre advertising campaign that used paper flyers, only to gain traction as Chalamet filmed in the area for A24’s upcoming Marty Supreme.
Suddenly, Manhattan was filled to the brim with thousands of travelers dressed as chocolatiers, cannibals, folk musicians, and the Duke of Arrakis. Faster than anyone could fathom, control had been lost to the mob of Chalamet-ites. All hell broke loose around the time Timothée arrived. The reason for the arrests seems to just be poor crowd control. The primary known arrest doesn’t even seem to know why he was arrested.
The intent of this event is unclear. Some have speculated it was some sort of dating thing, others suggested simply a funny niche event. Lookalike contests are old hat, but what happened at this event changed the trajectory of 2024 in a way. Let’s do a brief recap of some of the big ones and some of the weird ones that followed.
1. Jeremy Allen White
The first big copycat event was the Jeremy Allen White lookalike contest in Chicago. Everyone skipped over White’s early character Lip Gallagher, and pulled out their best Carmy Berzatto impressions from The Bear. Hosted November 16th in Humboldt Park, a significantly smaller crowd of about fifty short white guys battled it out for the Carmy Crown (+ fifty bucks, bragging rights, and a pack of cigarettes).
The event itself seemed pretty lowkey, but those involved had a good time. In the grand scheme of things, it was unremarkable and pleasant.
2. Jason Kelce
This one is really specific. About a week ago in Philly, there was a Jason Kelce lookalike contest. Apparently, it was hosted in the same public space that a Miles Teller lookalike contest was held about a month prior.
The Jason Kelce lookalike contest is particularly fun because the football star got really into the event too. Kelce even disagreed with the outcome. The real winner was not his pick of choice. Kelce later changed his profile picture on social media platform X to reflected who he thought the real winner should have been.
3. Drew Starkey
The event that I tracked religiously was the Drew Starkey lookalike contest. It is interesting to me for two reasons. 1) it was slated to happen practically in my backyard in Raleigh, North Carolina, as Drew Starkey has become a staple of the Carolinas. 2) The event never actually happened.
The very, very viral Drew Starkey lookalike contest was cancelled due to a lack of male enrollment in the event just days before the event was supposed to take place. Tons had signed up, it is just that… well… none of them looked like Drew Starkey. I reached out to the organizers of this event for some updates, but they declined to comment.
4. Xolo Maridueña
For a contest that only had three people enroll as lookalikes, the Xolo Maridueña was pretty fun considering the Cobra Kai star called in to the event to congratulate the winner. The prize for this one was also cool: fifty bucks, the standard prize since the Chalamet lookalike contest, and a Blue Beetle action figure.
5. Paul Mescal
We have to go international for this one. Though they started in New York, these events are definitely not just an American thing. The Paul Mescal lookalike contest in Dublin, Ireland had about six participants. The prize for this one was €20 “or three pints.” But it was presented on one of the big checks, which is pretty fun too.
Paul Mescal was pretty impressed with the winner of this one too.
6. The Challengers Lookalike Contest
One of the hottest movies of the year, and certainly the sweatiest, was Challengers. A lot of people showed up to showcase their best Art and Patrick vibes. The winning pair split a churro sensually, like in the film.
Now, I’m a little mad about this one. It is unclear to me if this is a pure lookalike contest or if this is just a glorified costume contest. Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig are pretend tennis players from a Guadagnino movie. Sure, you can look like them, but it’s more like dressing up for Halloween instead of directly looking like actors Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor… Not true to form on this one… Don’t even get me started on the even more bizarre Shrek lookalike contest, ugh!
7. Rachel Sennott
This contest is among few that I could find that wasn’t male-focused. The Rachel Sennott lookalike contest, seemingly one of the only female-fronted events of this nature this year, had a small handful of attendees that looked somewhat like Bottoms star Sennott. They met at Tompkins Square Park by the Hare Krishna Tree. The event took entirely too long and I’m not sure what the grand prize was.
In conclusion, I repeat:
THESE EVENTS ARE GETTING OUT OF HAND.
These events, like many of their participants, are merely bad copies of one real thing. All of these events are self-serving competitions for a few clicks online. Maybe they can be viewed as charming and quirky community events straight out of Gilmore Girls, but I think they have lost their sparkle. The internet did what it does best and found a formula for funny and copy/pasted it ad nauseam.
Once a trend has an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to it, it may be time to let it go.
Maybe in 2025, we can use these powers of whimsical community engagement for good instead of making all these poor people dress up like other people for a quick buck. The Chalamet lookalike contest was only in October! Think about all the things young people could accomplish with this drive and energy. The lookalike contest trend was fun while it lasted, but let’s agree to leave this one in 2024. I don’t know if I can take anymore of these things…
