Doppelgänger Week/MyHeritage.com

[Luposapien]

The topic around the office this morning has been "Doppelgänger Week" on Facebook, wherein people are putting up profile pictures of celebrities that they think they look like (although this is apparently against the Terms of Agreement on Facebook, and probably illegal to boot). From nydailynews.com:

Doppelgänger Week looks like Facebook's next big fad

By Soraya Roberts
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Originally Published:Friday, January 29th 2010, 10:28 PM
Updated: Monday, February 1st 2010, 5:05 PM

What does Facebook's Doppelgänger Week look like? Depending on who you are, it could look like a Simpson, Michael Jackson or, if you're lucky, Angelina Jolie.

In order to celebrate Doppelgänger Week, Facebook users switch their profile pictures to famous people they have been told they resemble.

The trend appears to be catching on like wildfire, so much so that its success is being compared to that of the "bra colour" status updates. The recent viral trend had women updating the style of bra they were sporting in order to raise awareness for breast cancer.

The news feed announcing Doppelgänger Week on the social networking site this week read:

"It's Doppelgänger week on Facebook; change your profile picture to someone famous (actor, musician, athlete, etc.) you have been told you look like. After you update your profile with your twin or switched at birth photo then cut/paste this to your status."

For those who have never been compared to a celeb, the site has an application, Face Double, that will generate their long-lost celebrity brethren.

When I did a search online for "doppelgänger", the first thing that came up was for a site called My Heritage: "Share your family tree and photos with the people you know and love", where you can upload pictures of yourself, and using facial recognition software, they will come up with an list of celebrities (and their pictures) that you supposedly resemble. From the Celebrity Collage page of their website:

Exactly what you need for Doppelganger Week: MyHeritage.com face recognition technology discovers which celebrities you look like. Now, for free, you can create a collage showing your very own celebrity matches, and post it easily on your blog, or include it in your Facebook profile, or email it to your friends.

Ok. Is it just me, or does this creep anyone else out? I mean, more than the per-usual when it comes to sites like Facebook? It strikes me as wrong on at least a couple levels, besides the apparent illegality of using the images.

You've got the aspect of submitting yourself willingly (enthusiastically, in fact, if the reactions of the folks I work with are a general indication) to having photos of yourself analyzed by facial recognition software through a website or sites (not sure about My Heritage or other sites that may offer this service), with possible/probably police-state connections.

You've got the continuing and ever expanding push to have people identify themselves with celebrities and the subsequent reinforcement of celebrity/hero worship in a culture already choking to death on it.

You've got uncritical media coverage, reinforcing what a cool & fun idea this is.

What say you? Am I just being a paranoid, luddist, old fogy, or does this make anyone else's skin crawl?

[Pele'sDaughter]

I've never understood all the people flocking to Myspace and Facebook for the obvious reasons you mentioned. People who are totally paranoid and listening to Jones are immersed in Facebook daily, and it doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it appeals to their ego in a way that supercedes common sense. Whatever it is, I'm apparently immune. I don't feel that pressure to conform or compare to others or have a huge cadre of "friends"; not an attention seeker.

[IanEye]

The topic around the office this morning has been "Doppelgänger Week" on Facebook, wherein people are putting up profile pictures of celebrities that they think they look like

"Repetition is a form of change." - Oblique Strategies

i fucking love LoveTone effects pedals, so that is what i put up on facebook for my profile pic. only a couple of my facebook friends got the joke....

[Maddy]

The new one has shown me how sheople follow viral marketting like .... sheep. This one is from this morning:

… enter ‘automation labs’. A list of approx 20 people you dont even know will come up. Block each one individually. These people have access to your facebook account/profile and spy on what you do….This is true…I’ve done it.

So I looked up Automation Labs, and this was my first link:

ALERT: Automation Labs Does Not Have Access To Your Facebook Profile

It follows this:

Facebook Urban Dictionary Trend Becomes Massively Viral

And has shown me exactly what kind of lemmings are out there that will go ahead and follow this viral stuff that seems to be created by *channers for lulz.

In response to the OP:

Frankly, I'm tired of being terrified of everything our government is doing. Seriously. I'm burned out. They already have everything they need to find us and do whatever they want, it seems. So why worry about something harmless like the doppleganger ordeal? Perhaps the fear is what's causing so much apathy. It is with me.

Or I just could be burned out and not caring any longer.

[NaturalMystik]

Ok. Is it just me, or does this creep anyone else out? I mean, more than the per-usual when it comes to sites like Facebook? It strikes me as wrong on at least a couple levels...

What say you? Am I just being a paranoid, luddist, old fogy, or does this make anyone else's skin crawl?

Yeah! I was just thinking about this a few minutes ago as I was browsing through friends dopplegangers. It's effin creepy! It's like a genetic cataloging programming, x-files style, using a known celebrity to represent each of the models. Maybe I'm running on here a bit, but all your points are totally valid I think, it seems wrong for many reasons.

[Luposapien]

Frankly, I'm tired of being terrified of everything our government is doing. Seriously. I'm burned out. They already have everything they need to find us and do whatever they want, it seems. So why worry about something harmless like the doppleganger ordeal? Perhaps the fear is what's causing so much apathy. It is with me.

Or I just could be burned out and not caring any longer.

I definitely see/feel where you're coming from, and I don't mean to be a fear-monger, so sorry if this post is feeding the beast, as it were. I do, in fact, have a Facebook account and a MySpace page, though I only check in on FB maybe once every other month or so (and almost never on MySpace), just to see if anyone I've lost touch with over the years has dropped in. More than once, I've thought of re-registering here under my real name, and dropping the whole online alter-ego entirely. I mean, if anything I've posted online has made me worthy of investigation, I'm sure it wouldn't take them (whoever them may be) from finding out who I am with relative ease. And, of course, to hell with them anyway.

Really, this isn't any more insidious than any number of items I run across on a daily basis, but for some reason, this one tickled me in the back of my lizard-brain.

[Maddy]

Ah, no! You're not feeding the beast! I just had to get that off of my chest, considering I just went rounds on my Facebook with some friends who had posted it, then I tried it, then they kept posting it, then I checked, then I felt like an idiot for falling for it! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!




(/me scratches your lizard brain.)

[zero hour]

naturalmystik said:

Yeah! I was just thinking about this a few minutes ago as I was browsing through friends dopplegangers. It's effin creepy! It's like a genetic cataloging programming, x-files style, using a known celebrity to represent each of the models. Maybe I'm running on here a bit, but all your points are totally valid I think, it seems wrong for many reasons.

that was exactly what creeped me out about the whole thing too! i don't know the x-files reference, but, for my tastes at least, it's all a little too reminiscient the twilight zone episode "number 12 looks just like you," which involves a futuristic society in which everyone undergoes a "voluntary" procedure to make them look like one of the beautiful stock figures numbered in a catalog.

i've been thinking of the doppelganger meme, too, while reading the narcissicism thread that's currently going down on this board. it strikes me as little more than bait to have all of one's "friends" posting "oh my god, you really DO look exactly like natalie portman!"

[Alaya]

I had a FB account for about two weeks. I joined to snoop around is all. I used an aka because I had heard stories. Then people started finding me anyway through my phone number and FB itself was finding people for me, people I had never wanted to devote one thought molecule to ever again.

I cancelled my account.

I suppose it's a great thing for families who are separated but definitely not for the paranoid lone wolf type who preferred to be left alone.