The agony and ecstasy of the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest

About 15 minutes earlier, the informal event, advertised as a “Timothy Chalamet look-alike contest,” had turned into a strange commotion. We arrived just before 1pm, the start time listed on the advertising leafletsthat promised a $50 cash reward that appeared all over the city in late September — amid an already raucous crowd of onlookers. (These posters, as well as Partiful’s public event, went viral with thousands of retweets, various local and global news stories, and even an exclusive “human interest” preview New York Post. It even was a photo of Chalamet himself from a mobile phone passed by one of the posters during the filming of Josh Safdie’s upcoming project Marty the Supreme in Lower Manhattan.)

On this sunny Sunday afternoon, everyone gathered here in Washington Square Park, the aorta of the New York University campus, to admire the many handsome people—mostly young men with dark curls, aquiline noses, and brooding cheekbones—who had come to compete. Although the entire event had a similar structure, its 23-year-old organizer, a popular YouTube stunt enthusiast named Anthony Poe (although he sometimes goes by “Gilbert”), had provided the usual pageant ephemera—a six-foot-tall shiny trophy, a huge $50 check made out to “Best Tim,” and a briefcase full of fun Halloween candy.