Celebrity look-alike contests are taking New York City by storm, following the prominence of the Timothee Chalamet look-alike contest held in Washington Square Park on Oct. 27 — featuring a surprise appearance from the real Chalamet — multiple posters of similar contests were put up all around the city.
The ones that gained the most traction were the Jeremy Allen White, Jack Schlossberg, and Zayn Malik look-alike contests, which happened to fall on Nov. 17, around the same time. The Free Press made it to all three contests, covering Washington Square Park, Central Park, and Maria Hernandez Park within three hours.
The Jeremy Allen White look-alike contest was held at Washington Square Park, drawing in hopeful blue-eyed individuals hoping to win the prize. White has made a name for himself through an extensive body of work, but is most commonly known for portraying Phillip “Lip” Gallagher in Shameless and Carmen Berzatto in The Bear.
While the Chalamet contest had a range of people dressed as Willy Wonka, Dune, and other recent characters played by him, everyone at the Jeremy Allen White contest wore a simple uniform — a crisp white t-shirt with a blue apron. Tattoos and cigarettes were optional, but encouraged.
“I flew out from Los Angeles to be here…my coworker sent me the flier…and there was a JetBlue sale,” said contestant Elodie Azoulay.
The Jeremies stood below the Washington Square Park arch, recreating his signature look from The Bear, waiting for the winner to be announced. But the organizers did not show up, so the unofficial winner left without the prize: a seven-day metrocard, and two packs of cigarettes.
Over at Central Park’s Sheep Meadow, a large group of women gathered in hopes of seeing men who resembled Jack Schlossberg, a writer and political correspondent, as well as John F. Kennedy’s only living grandson.
While the Jeremy Allen White contest was full of people committed to the bit, the scenes at Central Park were a little different. Participant AJ Oppenheimer stated that he was “going for a run” when his friend pushed him to join for fun.
The organizer, Kelsey Liann, as photographed above, shared that she was hoping for Schlossberg to show up as “he is all for the bit,” she said, seeing as he had shared the poster on his Instagram story 3 days before the event.
The winner, Danny Richardson, was the only Schlossberg that showed up to partake, rather than stumbling in.
Richardson was the only contestant dressed like Schlossberg, sporting a casual button-down shirt, dress pants, a belt, and most importantly, the smile lines. His prize? A $50 Chipotle gift card. This look-alike contest, despite having the lowest turnout of the three, perfectly encapsulated the spirit of the many lookalike events popping up — playful contests that promote real-life human connection by bringing people to gather in a public place.
As the Schlossberg contestants disposed of their number cards and resumed their workouts, Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick began to fill up with over 500 attendees hoping to find the next Zayn Malik. The prize was a free tattoo, a possible nod to the singer’s multiple tattoos.
Organizers Jazmine Arnold and Savannah Neely had put up the posters around Bushwick in hopes of finding Malik’s dupe — but it slowly turned out to be a crowd of men with dark hair, facial hair, and close to no resemblance to the former One Direction member.
Multiple contestants made their way to the platform, as the crowd’s cheers dictated who would be eliminated. All the contestants were dressed in black leather jackets and a wife beater shirt, replicating Malik’s signature slick black wardrobe. While the contestants were undeniably embracing the absurdity of it all, with some even attempting to recreate the singer’s iconic loose hair strand that took fans by storm in 2014, they did not look like Malik.
People on X shared the same sentiment, stating that most of the participants were less than realistic. “Zayn Malik lookalike contest has proven that Zayn’s face card is unmatched, unbeatable, unbelievable, no one can ever do it like him,” Ayshiboo wrote on X.
Nonetheless, the audience’s cheers declared 29-year-old Shiv Patel the winner. “I am kind of surprised, I thought someone else would have won…I feel like every brown guy kind of looks like Zayn,” he said. Despite being crowned the winner, Patel played along with the social media discourse, sharing a post about the competition on his Instagram and captioning it “pov we have @zayn at home.”
Patel was one of the three standing finalists for the contest, and mere seconds after he was declared the winner, he was ambushed by a crowd asking to take pictures with him until another look-alike began to garner more attention.
Fans suddenly made their way over to 3rd runner-up Faaris Sattar, a musician from Austin, Texas, as they believed he resembled Malik far more than Patel. Some even asked him to sign their books and notebooks, to which he calmly agreed. “I got that a lot in high school and college. I can see the features… he is also a Pakistani guy,” said Sattar, when asked about his resemblance to Malik.
While the social media discourse surrounding this contest was cynical, the crowd was lively. Whether one was there to scout for Malik’s clone or simply there to find a future love interest, the common thread was fostering a sense of community.
The winners of the contests get bragging rights, the attendees get an afternoon of uninterrupted fun, and there’s always the thrill of the possibility that the celebrity might show up.
