If you haven’t been on Facebook lately, you might not know that this week (and last week, and next week…) is DOPPLEGÄNGER WEEK (from PCWorld).
During Doppelgänger Week, one changes his or her Facebook profile picture to the photograph of one’s celebrity look-alike, usually at the suggestion of friends (or the people on the street who mistook you for said celebrity) or, you know, if you do say so yourself. While a proliferation of Angelinas, Blake Livelys and Natalie Portmans is to be expected, one also comes across the occasional historical figure, cartoon, or animal. Most of us don’t look like famous people.
If nobody’s ever said you look like so-and-so, you can also use sites like My Heritage and Picitup, where you can upload an image of yourself and a program will spit out a few possibilities (I tried both: according to one picture I uploaded on My Heritage, I was 83% Angelina, according to another photo, 73% Emma Watson… I look like neither of these people, and Picitup couldn’t find me a match).
The origins of Dopelgänger Week are mysterious. According to ABC News, a spokesperson from Facebook wrote in an e-mail that they could not track down any single source and that it was likely a person or group of friends who, through the crowdsourcing power of News Feed, caught the attention of others. In a fictional interview that has fooled a fair share of people (and news sources), Alex Grossman of the Huffington Post invents the character of Bob Patel, who started Doppelgänger Week as a retaliatory joke when his coworkers kept telling him he looks like Tom Selleck (Patel, 19 years old and Indian, figures ‘maybe it’s the mustache’ that sparked the comparison). Whoever did bring us Doppelgänger Week, thank you. Our egos are grateful.
