I was present. It was like a scene from Dune.

Before you ask: no, I haven’t. That Timothee Chalamet. Instead, I met about a dozen of his lookalikes at the Timothée Chalamet Lookalike Competition in New York City on Sunday. It all started with a few mysterious leaflets Advertisements for the details (1 p.m. in Washington Square Park, near the New York University campus; $50 cash prize to winner) are scattered throughout the city. The ad accompanying Partiful’s invitation went viral, and by October 7 Time-out reported that almost 900 people responded to the invitation. By the morning of the competition, Particful’s invitation had received more than 2,500 responses. Several members of Slate’s editorial team agreed to go, placing bets on how many of those 2,500 respondents would actually show up. We thought it would be mostly journalists. (Wrong!) And, of course, the real Lisan al-Ghaib. (Wrong again!)

I arrived just before 1pm to find a sizable crowd of mostly journalists and influencers with their tiny microphones and large cameras. The meeting was filled with men in their twenties, blessed with thin noses, defined jawlines, light eyes and, of course, luxurious dark locks. And then there were us, the plebeians-not-Chalamet, whose genetic gifts could not compare with the sea of ​​2c curls that unfolded before us. A handful of police remained on the outskirts of the small crowd, monitoring the situation.

The first Timmy twin I noticed was one of the most convincing. His name was XanderThe 22-year-old and his girlfriend Ahlia convinced him to take part. If only he had won – and he seemed to be a winner! – he would “spend money” on his girlfriend. Tristan, 20, had driven all the way from St. Louis, Missouri the night before to compete. “It’s about 956 miles,” he told me, but assured me that he was not tired: “I’m 20, I’m invincible!” Tristan told me that Timothy’s essence came down to his hair, adding that perhaps his eyes, then hidden by sunglasses, helped. When did he take down the curtains? Glittery caramel. If he won $50, he would (responsibly) use it to pay for gas on the way home. I also encountered Grace, 21a Parsons student with short, curly brown hair and delicate features who told me she was walking through the park on the way to school when people kept asking if she was in the competition. She realized that perhaps she was the only girl who had entered, surrounded by “a bunch of just guys.” Grace was a humble fan. “I like him,” she said, but added that “not like @ClubChalamet“, referring to the infamous and sometimes confusing fan account which is controlled by 57-year-old woman.

By then the crowd had grown significantly. There are no official attendance figures, but almost all media outlets agree that the number of participants did indeed reach thousands. Everywhere you turned there were versions of Timmy, and hundreds more onlookers. Some participants arrived dressed as Chalamet characters, playing the harmonica. Bob Dylan Timmy up to two Timmy Willy Wonkas in different cylinders. Before I could interview Wonka, the crowd formed a tighter circle before the competition began. I didn’t see or hear anything other than nearby fans muttering comments that proved the event had taken place. already created something like knowledge before it even began. Someone mentioned that one of the participants had an argument with the police. I found out about this later when other viewers showed me their video, but it turns out that one of Chalamet (and not Wonka, as was rumored) actually did: be arrested. (Organizer offered to pay the fineif only it could be found.)

I believe it was during this pandemonium that the real Timothée Chalamet did show up posed briefly for photographs and wished the participants good luck. The Internet wondered whether the actor would be at risk of safety by appearing after his photo on the set of an upcoming film in the city Marty Supreme showed him walking past one of the leaflets. However, even @ClubChalamet considered this unlikely. Instead the crowd was so large that real Timothée Chalamet could show up and some of us (even me and some of my fellow journalists) wouldn’t even know. Not just his appearance maybe it will help raise money for charity, but it also stumped @ClubChalamet among fans, prompting the account to release lengthy statement about a failed prediction.

The police broke up the meeting after no more than 15 minutes, but the organizers had prepared a backup location in advance. So they asked one of Wonka to lift the trophy to lead a mass exodus toward Mercer Playground. However, if you were at the back or side of the crowd like I was, you wouldn’t know it, and so traveling to the secondary location felt like hundreds of people following a child dressed as a fictional chocolatier, holding a tall trophy (engraving for the event) along the streets of New York. Did they already call Wonka the winner during the chaos and he just unknowingly led people to class or his dorm? I thought out loud. Some girls nearby laughed, saying they were wondering the same thing. The crowd was full of blind faith. My editor, walking ahead of us in the procession, wrote: “I am indeed led by Lisan al-Ghaib.”

At the Mercer Playground, each member took the stage to introduce themselves. A Bob Dylan lookalike droned on his harmonica and one of Wonka opened a brown briefcase full of chocolate and threw the candy into the crowd. When Xander came to the fore, someone next to me said, “Oh, shit!” delighted. Compared to an expert like Xander, the final choice of winner, who after much deliberation actually turned out to be Wonka, leading us to second place, was disappointing. This triumphant Timmy (21-year-old Staten Island resident) had the best suit and was adorable (he reportedly “intended to spend his $50 prize on candy“), but he didn’t do it In fact looks like an actor just like some of Timmy’s rejected ones. “I’m not here for the costumes, I’m here for the bone structure!” I cried. The woman next to me nodded in agreement.

The man behind it all? Anthony Poe YouTuber who took the pseudonym Gilbert so that his almost two million followers would not automatically know that the event was his, leading to a more organic result. He’s no stranger to this: He organized another successful gathering of New Yorkers who came to watch him eat. a whole jar of cheese balls a few months before. In an interview after the event, he says that he and his team want to host more events like this while remaining anonymous. However, he was concerned that the events were becoming too popular. He had a contingency plan in case he was arrested, but the only damage was a modest fine of $500 from the city.

I hope Poe tries again. Although the event ended in an instant, it still felt like an iconic milestone to those attending, not only going viral on the internet, but also (and I don’t think I’m exaggerating this) representative of the multi-layered beauty of humanity. Celebrity lookalikes! People are looking for love! (The woman held a sign that said, “Are you single?” followed by “Do you like girls?” with Yes/No checkboxes next to each question.) Celebrity Spotting! And even someone made a joke on Xa demonstration of “legitimate police brutality.” (This is only funny because it doesn’t seem like the intended cruelty. everything was so cruel.) The question of whether movie stars even exist in 2024 seemed to put to sleep when thousands of people gathered to see people who simply looked like someone they loved. I’ve heard several people claim that New York is one of the best cities in the world. I went home convinced that while my dreams of seeing Timothée Chalamet among his options were dead, monoculture and whimsy were freaky as hell. No.