“I Look Like Martin Shkreli and It’s Ruining My Life”

September 11, 2017 10:52 PM

NYU Student Graham Dunn has written a short essay about a serious problem.
posted by Going To Maine (105 comments total)

Nice try Martin Shkreli
posted by zippy at 11:01 PM on September 11, 2017 [125 favorites]

Meanwhile, the Shkreli Professorship of Pediatric Nephrology, NYU, endures.
posted by runcifex at 11:05 PM on September 11, 2017

He doesn't have the same "literal cartoon rat" the real one has but it's not NOT. A resemblance.

For a darker feature like that dye your hair auburn and trim the eyebrows for a few months until he stops being a thing
posted by The Whelk at 11:08 PM on September 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Jeez just grow a beard
posted by potrzebie at 11:34 PM on September 11, 2017 [22 favorites]

Buzz that scalp, grow out that shadow into something beard-like, and don't smile like that, and I think the problem goes away pretty quick. Maybe fake glasses?

Someone get a sketch artist working on this guy's behalf ASAP to work out a lookbook.

But yeah, that would suck cuz lots of otherwise decent people want to punch Shkreli.
posted by Caxton1476 at 11:34 PM on September 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

Jeez just grow a beard

Of course! Just choose to grow a beard, and it grows!
posted by zardoz at 11:47 PM on September 11, 2017 [52 favorites]

Could be worse. Could look like Ted Cruz.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:52 PM on September 11, 2017 [32 favorites]

Could be worse. I've been told in the last year, that, despite my beard, I make people think of Steve Bannon (which I just DO NOT FUCKING SEE). Although some people at work started calling me Jerry (after Garcia), which is cool. At least he is a human people like.
posted by Samizdata at 12:43 AM on September 12, 2017 [12 favorites]

Nah. Needs more Gollum.
posted by quinndexter at 1:06 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

srsly though, dude needs to invest in a new hairstyle at least.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:16 AM on September 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Jeez just grow a beard

...or perhaps a Charlie Chaplin moustache.
posted by fairmettle at 1:31 AM on September 12, 2017 [7 favorites]

Just choose to grow a beard, and it grows!

I mean, I myself could generate a disgusting six-hair goatee at best, but this guy does say in terms that he has five o'clock shadow.
posted by Segundus at 2:03 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Is there not some kind of business opportunity here? Hired look-alike? Custard pie stall? Maybe I'm not making sufficient allowance for US gun culture?
posted by Segundus at 2:04 AM on September 12, 2017 [9 favorites]

Beard, buzz cut, glasses... Well meaning people just don't get how a suspicious mind works. Who would go to such lengths NOT to look like Martin Shkreli? Who but the villain himself?
I feel for this guy.
posted by hat_eater at 2:47 AM on September 12, 2017 [14 favorites]

Yous are all going for far too extreme solutions. I guess he could cut his hair, or grow a beard, or start wearing glasses, or he could just comb that daft parting out of his hair.
posted by Dysk at 3:58 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is a rough introduction to the fact that, as an adult, you have to actually wear big boy clothes. Most men don't get shamed into wearing clothes, getting a decent haircut, and shaving regularly
posted by The River Ivel at 4:18 AM on September 12, 2017 [11 favorites]

It is at times like this that I am grateful for only ever having resembled Ludwig II of Bavaria and, for about a year, Paul Rudd.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:29 AM on September 12, 2017 [8 favorites]

I second the beard motion, of course.
posted by doctornemo at 4:31 AM on September 12, 2017

But I'm fascinated by the weird contours of our popular resentment of the 1%'s 1%.
On the one hand, we didn't start, say, assassinating banksters, nor turning them into major cultural villains.
On the other, a handful of these guys have become popular baddies.
posted by doctornemo at 4:33 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I have a moderately distinctive appearance, and occasionally have been pulled aside by strangers and told that I resemble someone close to them. One woman was almost in tears because I was the doppelganger of her brother who had died. I'm glad that I don't resemble someone evil. So far.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:34 AM on September 12, 2017

I applaud this essayist's skill at getting in every dig possible at his doppelganger.

the most hated man in pre-Trump America
the smarmy asshole who got banned from Twitter just by being smarmy and asshole-ish
the owner of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin
someone who offered to bail out Bobby Shmurda
a terrible douche
in jail and, you know, not a junior in college
posted by chavenet at 4:45 AM on September 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

he is not martin shkreli
he is not martin shkreli
he is not martin shkreli
his real name is graham
posted by murphy slaw at 5:09 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've gotten two you-look-like-a-minor-celebrity moments, neither positive.

First one: "You look like... can't remember his name... from that TV show... what was it? Anyway... it isn't good."

Second one: "The guys have been calling you Seymore, because you look like Seymore Butts." "Who?" "He makes porn. Think about his name for a second..."

So I'm zero-for-two in the you-look-like category. At least I'm no Martin Shkreli, though.
posted by clawsoon at 5:15 AM on September 12, 2017

I sympathize. People used to spend a significant amount of time telling people how much I resemble Tiger Woods. It was funny for a while, especially while he was in his prime, but it got to the point where it was actually burdensome to me. Like, so many people would stop me that if have trouble doing what I left the house to do. Strangers would stop me on the street, then stop other strangers on the street to show off the resemblance they'd found. And then those strangers would stop other strangers. It got to the point where, if a stranger stopped me, I'd say "yeah, I know, Tiger Woods". It was weird. I mean, we have somewhat similar features, but not so similar that we look like twins or something. (I am, for one thing, quite white.) My wife doesn't see the resemblance at all.

And then it came out that Tiger Woods was a huge douche, and people stopped talking to me about him. It's been years since that happened.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:36 AM on September 12, 2017 [8 favorites]

I've been told in the last year, that, despite my beard, I make people think of Steve Bannon (which I just DO NOT FUCKING SEE). Although some people at work started calling me Jerry (after Garcia)...

Clearly you have some sort of mystical shape-shifting ability!
posted by TedW at 5:37 AM on September 12, 2017

I apparently have spent most of my life unintentionally cosplaying Velma from Scooby Doo. Shit's tough all over, bro.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:47 AM on September 12, 2017 [19 favorites]

A guy in a parking lot once stopped his car and rolled the window down while driving past me, and when I asked what was up he apologized because he thought I was Brett Favre.

I do not look like Brett Favre, nor did I in 2008.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:48 AM on September 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

See The Remarkable Case of Mr. Bruhl, by James Thurber (scroll to page 143).
posted by JanetLand at 5:51 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Could be worse. I've been told in the last year, that, despite my beard, I make people think of Steve Bannon (which I just DO NOT FUCKING SEE). Although some people at work started calling me Jerry (after Garcia), which is cool. At least he is a human people like.

Are you entirely sure they don't mean Jerry as in Gary Gergich, which is, in this case, not a complement?
posted by Merus at 5:56 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Has he caught Bill Murray and the RZA breaking into his apartment yet?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:56 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

In my horn-rimmed glasses phase, I looked not unlike Sen. Al Franken. I couldn't be happier.
posted by Artful Codger at 5:58 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Some guy followed me through a mall once yelling at me that I looked like the kid from the Encyclopedia Brittanica ad. Last I looked, they never found his body.
posted by thelonius at 6:11 AM on September 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Most men don't get shamed into wearing clothes, getting a decent haircut, and shaving regularly

It's called a "five o'clock shadow" because even when you shave every day, in 10 hours between shaving at 7am, the end of work at 5pm, the hair grows enough to be visible. Hell, if your hair is dark and coarse enough, it's basically still almost visible after a shave.

The haircut he can help. The smile/smirk he can help to some degree. The shaving situation will be solved only be *not* shaving and growing the beard out a bit.
posted by explosion at 6:31 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I've been mistaken for two different musicians in the past, both mostly due to rather unusual hairstyles or facial hair. Devin Townsend and Daniel Myer... since I happen to love both of their bands it was not a hardship.
Though one time I had a 5 minute conversation at a concert where it wasn't till the person walked away at the end and said "by the way i love your music" that I realized they had though I was in the band.
posted by cirhosis at 6:33 AM on September 12, 2017

Once I was ordering a cake at a bakery and the guy at the register asks me if anybody had ever told me that I looked like Dean Cain. And this was really exciting for me because I'm Asian, so the vast majority of people tell me that I look like Jet Li or Jackie Chan even though I don't. Anyway, I'm super excited and I go home and tell my ex-girlfriend, and she very patiently tells me: "You do not look like Dean Cain. That man was trying to Dean Cain his way into your pants."
posted by Comrade_robot at 6:40 AM on September 12, 2017 [50 favorites]

Wouldn't the real Martin Shkreli have a beefy bodyguard or two with him at all times?
posted by Bee'sWing at 6:41 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I don't know, if I were hired as Martin Shkreli's bodyguard...we'll let's just say even I might get a little distracted every once in a while, if you know what I mean.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:45 AM on September 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

I get called Quitting Tarantino when I am skinny. Fortunately I am not often skinny. I sometimes get called Bull from Nightcourt (when my head's shaved). I can see both resemblances.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:48 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Also, "I would deny being the owner of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin."

Sure, not until the auction is over.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:50 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I used to get stopped and asked with some frequency if I were an indie rock star from Europe. Not ever someone particular, though.

I guess people saw me, asked themselves "hmmm, is she gay or eurotrash?" and guessed wrong, but that doesn't account for the rock star part.
posted by bile and syntax at 6:57 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

"You do not look like Dean Cain. That man was trying to Dean Cain his way into your pants."

Well, you must have looked enough like him to make it a plausible compliment, though. If someone told me that I looked like, eg, eighties-era Daniel Day-Lewis, I'd know that they were lying wildly for no doubt sinister reasons, but if someone told me that I had a vague, passing similarity to [various floppy-haired, round-faced, blue-eyed minor British actors] I might fall for it.

I have been told that I look like Oscar Wilde, which was plausible at the time. There was a point where straight people would tell me that I looked like Lea Delaria, but that was because they're stupid and terrible - what they meant was "you are a gender-ambiguous person with thick glasses, also your hair is short on the sides and although you aren't especially fat, you aren't especially thin either, and I am unable to see anything about you except gender-ambiguity and glasses, because if I don't literally want to fuck you or look like you, you are just a big blur. Also, I can only think of one gender-ambiguous AFAB person because I have zero queer friends". I was kind of rude to someone over this, because I really, really do not look like Lea Delaria. Or dress like Lea Delaria, or even really have a similar haircut or glasses or coloring or even build, for pete's sake.
posted by Frowner at 7:04 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

I realize it is against the spirit of MetaFilter to require people to post pictures of themselves, but I wish an exception could be made for this thread.
posted by straight at 7:05 AM on September 12, 2017 [13 favorites]

I occasionally get stopped on the street because I look like Kristen Schaal. If you interview rock bands, shit can get awkward fast.
posted by pxe2000 at 7:10 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Zaria Gorvett / BBC : You are surprisingly likely to have a living doppelganger.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:12 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

There was a brief period in my twenties when I supposedly looked enough like an actress who was popular at the time that almost everyone mentioned it, and at least a couple of people thought I was her. I didn't see the resemblance at all, so it was hard to figure out how to fix it, so I just got my hair cut short. But she must have found out about that, because not long after, she showed up on David Letterman with pretty much the same haircut. It was really uncomfortable, though, because I couldn't figure out how I should respond to that. I wasn't flattered, I wasn't offended, and I didn't want to get into discussions about my face with strangers all the time.

So I decided to become so grotesque looking that it's obvious to anyone that it would be rude to discuss my appearance at all.
posted by ernielundquist at 7:13 AM on September 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

Back in the nineties I used to have a double living or frequenting the same neighborhood I did. By double I mean someone who evidently looked so much like me that friends, coworkers, and even my girlfriend at the time tried to get his attention and would be upset with me later when they failed. One afternoon I was accosted by two women, one of whom started yelling at me about how badly I treated her friend, who was the other woman, each standing no more than three feet away from me. After a couple minutes of being dressed down, the one who I was supposed to have dumped gave a start and told her vocal friend I wasn't him.

It was a bit unnerving knowing that I not only had a double, but that he was a jerk. I started to keep an eye out for him, but realized I wasn't going to mistake someone else for me, being me and all, so I gave up after a while. But I never shook the worry that someday I might end up in one of those absurd seeming criminal mix ups, where the innocent man is arrested and the lookalike criminal goes free. I eventually moved to a new city, only to walk into a Starbucks and have the barista freak out because she thought I was her ex.

Strangely though I seem to not look like any celebrity at all.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:15 AM on September 12, 2017 [7 favorites]

I'm on the beard and better haircut train, but honestly, if he just worked to rid himself of his uncomfortable-forced-white-people-smile he'd make a world of difference.
posted by sonascope at 7:16 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm roughly the same age as the fictional Harry Potter with dark hair and glasses, so there was a couple years there that I got "hey you look like harry potter" a lot.

I look nothing like Daniel Radcliffe though, so it tapered off very quickly once the movies came out.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:21 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Harry. Fucking. Potter.

On preview: holy shit, BungaDungas comment was not there when I wrote that!
posted by quinndexter at 7:23 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Sure, not until the auction is over.
He has turned the eBay Q&A on this auction into an AMA.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:36 AM on September 12, 2017

BungaDunga, quinndexter: same :(
posted by dismas at 7:43 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

You are surprisingly likely to have a living doppelganger

I've met him. It was deeply unpleasant.
posted by thelonius at 7:50 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

My friend attempted to give me a compliment when I was 22 by telling me I looked like Annette Bening.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:50 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Annette Bening is gorgeous!
posted by amanda at 7:53 AM on September 12, 2017

Actually the better story about my doppelganger is this one:

A friend of mine was in the business district of a city I used to live in, and saw someone who looked so much like me that he approached her to say hi, and she was very confused and had to explain that she wasn't me and didn't know him. He then tried to call me to tell me about it and got a message saying my line was disconnected.

When he did get in touch we had a good laugh about it, but at the time it was a bit unnerving for him.
posted by bile and syntax at 7:55 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Could be worse. I've been told in the last year, that, despite my beard, I make people think of Steve Bannon (which I just DO NOT FUCKING SEE).

I know a guy who looks just like Steve Bannon, hair, eyes, even the generally rumpled attire. That said, he's healthy. So he looks like a healthy Steve Bannon. Which is just weird.

I liked this essay. I thought he seemed amused and slightly embarrassed and awkward about it, not really looking actively for a solution. It's not his fault he looks like a super-jerk. He's not the person who should be disallowed from wearing a hoodie or told he has to wash his hair more or whatever. That can be saved for Martin, whenever he comes down from whatever he's on.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 7:55 AM on September 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

I've been told in the last year, that, despite my beard, I make people think of Steve Bannon (which I just DO NOT FUCKING SEE). Although some people at work started calling me Jerry (after Garcia)...

Clearly you have some sort of mystical shape-shifting ability!

Yeah, no.

And as far as Gary/Jerry, dunno, seen his wife and family?

But, no, it's specifically Garcia.
posted by Samizdata at 7:56 AM on September 12, 2017

It's not his fault he looks like a super-jerk.

To clarify, I don't mean he looks like a jerk. I mean he looks like someone else who happens to be a jerk.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 7:57 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

A long time ago, former heavyweight champ Riddick Bowe told me, during a period when I was clean-shaven, that I looked like Tiny Tim. These days, when things are going well, some folks say I look like Dave Grohl, which is kind of weird cos' in the early '90s, people said I looked like Krist Novolselic...
posted by AJaffe at 8:05 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I once was on a ferry and had a couple come up to me waving a camera. They didn't speak English, but I assumed they wanted a photo of themselves in front of the setting sun. So, I grabbed the camera, there was a few moments of confusion that ended with my arm around the girl while she smiled and flashed the peace sign and the guy took a bunch of photos. No idea who they thought I was, but I hope no one has ever corrected them, and that somewhere in Japan, there's a photo of me hanging on a wall looking perplexed.
posted by melgy at 8:08 AM on September 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

"Zaria Gorvett / BBC : You are surprisingly likely to have a living doppelganger.

Back when I was in massage therapy school, there was one of my classmates who I never interacted with for most of the course. Towards the end of our studies, she came up and apologized for deliberately avoiding me. Apparently I almost gave her a heart attack the first day I arrived to class because I looked almost exactly like her ex-husband, right down to the way I dressed and walked. It took her months to get over the resemblance.

I always wished I had a chance to meet the guy and see how similar we really looked.
posted by tdismukes at 8:10 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

My own mother, who has presumabky known for me for 30 odd years, said at lunch she was happy for me but upset I didn't tell her I had landed a TV role.

I said I would be upset too but I had not, to my knowledge, been on TV, after some discussion i realized she had confused me with Zack Orth on the good wife

I mean, she's not not wrong but I like to think I'm more than a beard and a pair of glasses
posted by The Whelk at 8:16 AM on September 12, 2017 [8 favorites]

My partner gets asked on a regular basis if he is, or is related to, Adam Sandler. His best response was when he was in college driving down the street when a car of attractive young women pulled up next to him and one of them shouted out the window, "are you Adam Sandler?" He smiled mysteriously and said, "I could be if you wanted me to." They drove off giggling.

An ex of mine resembled Sean Penn and strangers would stop him to point it out. I've never had a celebrity doppelganger, but apparently I looked like a girl named Gretchen who went to school with a friend of mine. I saw her yearbook photo and didn't see a resemblance.
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 8:20 AM on September 12, 2017

I have been told by several gay men that I look like Chris Evans, which is rounding up my appearance and physique to a laughable degree.

My wife, being nearby twice and seeing me puffing up like a peacock, has said "welcome to the world of men saying whatever it takes to get in your pants."
posted by notorious medium at 8:30 AM on September 12, 2017 [20 favorites]

I have a long, narrow face, and my mom thinks I look like a Modigliani painting. However, she didn't say which one -- Jeanne Hebuterne? Head of a Woman (Anna Zborowska)? Janie? Portrait of Leopold Zborowski? Chaim Soutine? -- and nobody else has ever remarked upon it.
posted by virago at 8:37 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

its funny, cause there is definitely a resemblance, yet his face does not call out to be punched like Shkreli's does.
posted by supermedusa at 8:38 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

To get out of a minorly awkward situation at JazzFest, I once signed an autograph as Harry Connick Jr. and gave a fan a beer.

Made that guy's day and I got to watch the Neville Brothers in peace.
posted by donpardo at 8:41 AM on September 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

Previously: I'm not a look-alike, about the work of Francois Brunelle.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:42 AM on September 12, 2017

I used to be told I looked like Lenin. Fortunately, I've aged out of that.
posted by languagehat at 8:55 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Could be worse. Could look like Ted Cruz.

Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts has that franchise.
posted by hwyengr at 8:56 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Mr. Freedom got mistaken for Kenneth Branagh once by a car full of teenagers:

"Hey, are you that actor?!?!?!" one called out of the passenger window. As Mr. Freedom was in fact walking home from a show that he had acted in, he responded, "... yes?" "I KNEW IT!!!!!!" the teenager shouted, "I KNEW IT, it's the guy from Harry Potter!!!!"

Mr. Freedom is a strawberry blond, so he responded, "I'm not Daniel Radcliffe..." perplexedly. "No, no!" the teenager replied, "Professor Lockhart!!!" And then they drove away, giggling.
posted by chainsofreedom at 9:04 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I apparently have spent most of my life unintentionally cosplaying Velma from Scooby Doo.

This has made me realize that by default, I pretty much picture all of Metafilter as looking like mid-life versions of Velma or Shaggy, unless a Mefite provides specifics.
posted by bendybendy at 9:09 AM on September 12, 2017 [19 favorites]

I do not look like anyone famous. However, what is baffling to me is that I am a white Australian man, born in Australia to a white Australian mum and white English dad, giving me basically stock standard Australian heritage, but am constantly asked on Grindr of all places whether I am "European", to the point where people lead with the question "How long are you visiting for?" because they are so sure that I am not Australian. I am very confused. Rather than looking like someone famous, I apparently don't look like many people who are not famous????
posted by Panthalassa at 9:11 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I am noticing a good handful of anecdotes about gay men in this thread so maybe there is a link there??
posted by Panthalassa at 9:13 AM on September 12, 2017

On the one hand, we didn't start, say, assassinating banksters, nor turning them into major cultural villains.

We didn't? I recall something about bus tours back in 2007 up through Fairfield County, CT, that would show interested parties just where the NYC banksters mansions were. And BoA's general counsel got his DC house picketed in 2010. Which is admittedly a long way from assassination, but it's at least making the we-know-where-you-and-your-family-sleep part clear.

As to why they weren't turned into cultural villains as individuals, it's an interesting question. On one hand it was perhaps because there was some understanding, even among folks on the left who would have been doing the villainizing, that even a highly-paid I-banker or member of GS's board is essentially an interchangeable part in a much larger machine, easily replaced by one of the clambering wanna-bes from below if they met an unfortunate end. And on the other hand, and perhaps more importantly, many of them just aren't, as individuals, particularly unpleasant people. (By and large, those professions tend to select for social skills, particularly at the higher levels.) I suspect they'd read as basically "typical folks", just with a lot of money, which isn't something that demonizes well in the US by itself.

More generally: it's hard to hate a lot of people, at once, as individuals; if you want to set one group of people against another, for whatever purpose, you have to inspire hate against the abstract class or group as a whole. This is as true for Marxists as it is for Nazis and the KKK—knowing people too well on a personal level makes it hard to hate them, most of the time.

But Shkreli, on the other hand... Shkreli is the exception. He tried to build a (cut rate, social-media-based) cult of personality around himself, and seemed to relish negative attention—to the point of appearing to enjoy being a grating asshole. That sort of thing is socially punishable, almost regardless of what else you do. He just doubled down, combining an awful personality with reprehensibly antisocial actions, creating a lovely peanutbutter-in-my-chocolate combination from which there were seemingly no redemptive qualities at all, and perhaps more importantly gave ammunition to people who were predisposed to not liking him anyway (or, the reverse—when people were disgusted by his actions and then dug into who he was as a person, they found such a cartoon villain that it was hard not to dislike him personally).
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:20 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I am always being mistaken for that Count Orlok fellow. I don't even know him!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:32 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wait, wait. Third story: my old roommate was on an internet date with a woman who looked at me oddly when she came by. It turned out that I looked exactly like her ex-girlfriend who she had left for a man a few years back, and she had to confirm with him that I was in fact someone else before she stopped freaking out.
posted by bile and syntax at 9:51 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

There are some things I can’t change, like our shared lack of a proper transition from chin to neck, but I’m taking steps nonetheless.

Reading this phrase, I had the odd feeling of developing a crush on a dude who may not even be old enough to legally drink and also looks vaguely like Martin Shkreli.

its funny, cause there is definitely a resemblance, yet his face does not call out to be punched like Shkreli's does.

Yeah, it's weird how the camera can capture "smarmy" but it apparently really, really can.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:59 AM on September 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

You know, I just had the thought... If I were the Wu-tang, once I had found out what a asshead the person who bought Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was, I'd release it for free to everyone, because fuck that clown Shkreli, son.
posted by glonous keming at 10:17 AM on September 12, 2017 [8 favorites]

Some years ago a guy walked up to me at a bar and said "Hey, when are you getting back to San Antonio?" After a few moments of me meeting his goofy smile with a blank stare he explained that I look just like Manu Ginóbili. I don't follow basketball so I had to look him up when I got home and, the guy was right, I look just like him. In a really uncanny way. Features, facial hair, expressions, even our thinning hair pattern is the same, though I do happen to be almost a foot shorter. Since then, I've posed in multiple pictures for people asked to get a photo with "Manu" and I've even stood on chairs next to people to give photos an extra degree of plausibility.

When I lived in New York there were also several times on the subway when people approached me and called me by another name, only to be incredibly confused when I wasn't who they thought I was. One woman said she just couldn't believe I wasn't her friend, that I must be playing a joke on her, and tried to get me to fess up. We got in the same train car and I could see her staring at me incredulously until I got off at my stop.

Reports of a sleeper cell Manu Ginóbili clone army have been vastly overstated in the media, though. Haha. Who would believe such a thing? The ability to infiltrate political systems and assume clandestine control through clutch 3-point shooting and strategic flops is unproven and highly implausible.
posted by otolith at 10:32 AM on September 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

wot, this Chris Evans?
posted by glasseyes at 10:39 AM on September 12, 2017

I was at Urban Outfitters Sunday, feeling very uncomfortable because I am 34 and have only been mistaken for Louis Anderson or Zach Galifinakis in the past, when another customer asked me and my partner if we worked there. It was the coolest I've felt in a long time.

This kid seems pretty cool. I agree with the beard suggestion. It would help with his obvious chin hang-ups too. But really he should just use it as an opportunity to meet strangers and enjoy some weird interactions.

This is a rough introduction to the fact that, as an adult, you have to actually wear big boy clothes.

I don't know where you are from, but outside of offices and courtrooms I don't think the rest of the USA agrees with you. I've seen fleece vests and t-shirts at the symphony. I sat 2 rows away from a guy who took his sandals off so his feet could breathe during an Opera.
posted by kittensofthenight at 11:08 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Could be worse. Some woman told my grandpa he looked like Dick Cheney. He was aghast.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 11:13 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm the 4th Harry Potter in the thread, I guess. Once in a launderette in Welshpool at 10 am by a very drunk tourist, and once shouted across Reading station after midnight.

I also get Louis Theroux, which seemingly isn't that rare, but if I come out with "take your child and put it in oven", you know where that came from.
posted by ambrosen at 11:30 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

When I was in my late 20s/early 30s five different unrelated groups of people apparently thought I bore an uncanny resemblance to a particular iconic photograph of Charlie Manson.

The last two groups worked for clients of my employer, and when I heard that the final group's boss had mentioned in passing that several members of the office staff fled to the break room and hovered anxiously when I showed up, I shaved my beard.

Which at least ameliorated the problem, though to this day I am explicitly forbidden from ever fixing anybody with the "demonic glare", most especially my partner, the author of the edict.
posted by jamjam at 11:50 AM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I grew up in a rural area and had probably not seen more than a couple thousand people in person by the age of 13, and I think it led to a pretty specific kind of face confusion that's taken me 20 years of urban living to (mostly) get over.

Basically, I always think I know people until I get close to them. For the first couple years I lived in the city it was pretty bad. I had cases of mistaken identity almost weekly.

It really didn't help that I had a doppelganger in the first city I lived in, who lived in the same neighborhood and knew many of the same people. So not only was I constantly misidentifying people, every once in a while the mistaken person, whom I had never actually met, would "recognize" me, leading to even more confusion.

Nowadays I just wait to say hi until I'm close enough to see the whites of their eyes.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:50 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm sure there are others like him in the Citadel of Shkrelis.
posted by prepmonkey at 12:04 PM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

I sat 2 rows away from a guy who took his sandals off so his feet could breathe during an Opera.

That person should no longer be allowed to leave his house. Ever. For any reason.
posted by cooker girl at 12:33 PM on September 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Maybe we should just take his feet away.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:53 PM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

When I was about 21, in probably 1994, someone walked up to me nervously in the mall and whispered "Hello!? Wow, you're Chelsea Clinton, right?" Um no, I am not the 14(?) year old daughter of the president, wandering around alone at the mall. She was very surprised to hear that I was not Chelsea, since the president had been in town that week. A few years later, someone I worked with told me that I look EXACTLY like Monica Lewinsky. So that's kind of creepy. I don't look like either one but I guess I had Chelsea Clinton hair and I have a round face.
posted by artychoke at 1:50 PM on September 12, 2017

This has made me realize that by default, I pretty much picture all of Metafilter as looking like mid-life versions of Velma or Shaggy, unless a Mefite provides specifics.

Metafilter: Velma and Shaggy's Mid-Life Crisis
posted by ZeusHumms at 3:26 PM on September 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

In the early 2000s I looked enough like Bam Margera that I had a group of friends who called me "Bam." More recently when managing front-of-house at an arts event, all suited up and clean shaven and bespectacled, a patron told me with all affection that I look like Al Franken. Which, I mean...

I guess all things considered I'd rather be Al Franken than Bam Margera? I guess?
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 4:54 PM on September 12, 2017

It would really suck to resemble someone infamous. Tina Fey's career got a definite boost from her freak resemblance to Sarah Palin (and even so she hated it and said she was in denial about it until her little daughter mistook Palin for Mommy when she saw her on TV), but usually it's just a big hassle for the unknown lookalike. Even resembling a person famous for positive reasons would be a drag.

I'm relieved that I've never resembled anyone famous. Oh sure, a few people have compared me to Geena Davis and Tori Amos, but those are a stretch at best.

A former tenant of mine bore an astonishing resemblance to the actor Michael Chiklis. He says people tell him so at least twice a week. He once used a photo of Chiklis holding a gun as his profile shot and a number of people, including his mother and his girlfriend, asked him since when did he have a gun. One year when he went to the Toronto Film Festival, an usher thought he was Chiklis and tried to herd him over to the red carpet. One time during an email conversation with someone I knew, the other person said that he never thought celebrity resemblances that other people pointed out to him were accurate at all. I said, "I have one for you," and sent him photos of both my tenant and Michael Chiklis, challenging him to guess which one was which. He was staggered by it, saying that they looked like twins and that it was uncanny. He said (correctly) that he thought Chiklis was the one on the left, but that he wasn't sure at all.
posted by orange swan at 6:05 PM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

At least once every couple of weeks somebody stops me to tell me I look like The Big Show. And I sort of resent it, because I was rocking this look long before he was, so technically he looks like me. I should start keeping track of whether people comment on the resemblance more after he turns heel or something.
posted by MrBadExample at 10:08 PM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Huh. With my fairly short curly salt-and-pepper beard, my partner thinks I look like Liam Cunningham as Ser Davos.

Luckily, she also thinks this is a good thing ;)
posted by Pinback at 1:06 AM on September 13, 2017

One of my closest friends is a big fan of Martin Shkreli (unironically). She's a passionate social justice advocate and an incredibly kind person. I find it very hard to bite my tongue when she begins talking about how wonderful and misunderstood he is.
posted by daybeforetheday at 1:55 AM on September 13, 2017

"One of my closest friends is a big fan of Martin Shkreli (unironically). She's a passionate social justice advocate and an incredibly kind person"

This is the most confusing comment I've ever read on Metafilter.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:25 AM on September 13, 2017 [10 favorites]

I have been frequently told that I look like Will Ferrell. I have had random strangers take photographs of me because of the resemblance. It hasn't happened lately, though, so perhaps something has changed. (I'm a few years older than he is, but we're about the same height.)
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 7:11 AM on September 13, 2017

This thread is making think about the I Am Not Bernie guy.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 7:38 AM on September 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

> This has made me realize that by default, I pretty much picture all of Metafilter as looking like mid-life versions of Velma or Shaggy, unless a Mefite provides specifics.

*looks down*

*notices green t-shirt*

*vows to never buy brown pants of any type except as part of halloween costume*

people used to say I looked like zach braff, which as you'd expect annoyed me to no end.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:38 AM on September 13, 2017

Mr Bad Example is not a half-bad wrestling name either, really.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 7:21 PM on September 13, 2017

This has made me realize that by default, I pretty much picture all of Metafilter as looking like mid-life versions of Velma or Shaggy, unless a Mefite provides specifics.

Well at least in my case you'd be correct.

I actually own this shirt and wear it pretty frequently and, while I don't really resemble Hot Vampire-Hunting Velma, I get double-takes just from the prior knowledge that it activates. But even when I'm not wearing the shirt I've had multiple complete randos walk up to me to inform me that I look just like that girl on Scooby Doo. No, not Fred's sexy girlfriend. Not the hot one. The other one.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:31 PM on September 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Not the hot one

oh but they're so wrong
posted by murphy slaw at 6:24 AM on September 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Martin Shkreli’s $2 Million Wu-Tang Album Might Not Be a Wu-Tang Album

Bwahahahahahah
posted by chavenet at 1:15 PM on September 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Celebrities I have been told I look like:

When I was 17...Dolph Lundgren, in his role as Ivan Drago (from the neck up...I was never that ripped).

When I was 25...Denis Leary.

When I was 32...Paul Bettany.

When I was 45...I was actually mistaken for Neil Patrick Harris! :-D

A few months ago, at 50...thanks to a receding hairline over the past five years, one of my students told me I now look like Kurtwood Smith. :-/

Welp, it was a good run, but it looks like my glory days are over. At least I'm not...IN PRISON!
posted by darkstar at 2:14 AM on September 17, 2017