Facebook’s Doppelganger Week is the most lamentable excuse for a celebration since Talk Like a Pirate Day. Not to bash on pirates, but I really hate Sept. 19 now that the “holiday” is ubiquitous. I know “Pirates of the Caribbean” made guy-liner acceptable and shrunk Keira Knightley’s waist by three inches, but I will always resent it for giving Talk Like a Pirate Day a resurgence. But whatever.
Last year, I found out about Doppelganger Week the hard way. For a few minutes, I thought Prince William was absolutely charmed by me and that Zooey Deschanel was truly winking seductively at me. But no. Not only was I fooled – deceived! – by my friends, but now I had to hop aboard the bandwagon or else renounce my trendiness. Here’s how Doppelganger Week works: Facebook users must make their default picture one of a washed-up celebrity with their likeness or else face the terrifying reality that they simply aren’t attractive enough to have a famous look-alike.
Time magazine called Doppelganger Week “viral groupthink” in a Feb. 10, 2010, article, ultimately proclaiming that all the nonsense was superficial. It’s not the Orwellian brainwashing that bothers me though; it’s the sheer volume of lying that goes along with it.
“Wow, that picture of Natalie Portman really does look like you!”
“Rachel Bilson would be lucky to have your eyes.”
“You make Lisa Rinna’s lips look like liver.”
And so on. No one wants to tell the brutal truth because they want the compliments to keep rolling in for themselves. In a Facebook world of compliment boxes, likes and picture detagging, Doppelganger Week is the ultimate level of compliment fishing.
Doppelganger Week is narcissistic, but seeing everyone’s dedication to it gave me a little self-important smirk. The word doppelganger stems from German folklore, in which an evil twin would haunt their counterpart, stalking with malicious intent. Abraham Lincoln and Percy Bysshe Shelley were said to be cursed with doppelgangers, who appeared after their deaths and tortured loved ones. As recent as “Back to the Future II,” doppelgangers were pernicious mongrels hell-bent on destruction. Seeing my entire Facebook network fall prey to seemingly innocent vanity was very ironic indeed.
This year’s Doppelganger Week begins on Jan. 31, and as it nears, I have a few words of advice.
Number one, no one on Northwestern’s campus even remotely looks like Angelina Jolie. I don’t care about your bone structure or pedigree. Unless you can show me an Oscar or a vial of Billy Bob Thornton’s blood, I’m not buying it.
Number two, don’t ask your friends for doppelganger suggestions. After I begrudgingly decided to participate last year, my friends told me I should pick Nikki Blonsky, Rachel Dratch or Rosie O’Donnell. No, thank you.
Number three, don’t solicit the advice of any patent-pending website who claims to know your celebrity twin. I submitted a picture of me looking unusually tan, and the name it spit it out? Whoopi Goldberg. No offense to Whoopi, but I still have my eyebrows.
Terri Pous is a Medill junior. She can be reached at [email protected].
