In early October, ugly and mysterious posters began popping up around New York City, declaring that a Timothée Chalamet lookalike competition would be taking place on Oct. 27 at 1 p.m. by the Washington Square Arch. A QR code on the posters linked to an event hosted by Partiful, a digital invitation platform which the New York Times has described as “vibey and very Gen-Z coded.” On the morning of the competition, there were well over 2,500 RSVPs on the invitation.
When we decided last week that we were going to the competition, we had a feeling it would bring out all the usual suspects. There would be the online wing of traditional legacy media, of course, but we also knew that this event was going to draw out the TikTokers and niche Substack bloggers like writhing, quivering rats to a trash pile.
Just an hour before we arrived at the park, we spoke on the phone with the organizer of the event, who had gone by “Gilbert” on the Partiful invite. He revealed himself to us as Anthony Po, a TikTok influencer who ate a container of cheeseballs in Union Square last spring, gaining fame as “The Cheeseball Man.”
“We have a penny-farthing,” Po told us when we asked what we could expect. “It’s a big bike.”
What kind of person shows up to a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest? As observers started to trickle in, the answer, it seemed, was “journalists.” If the Timothée-wannabes were instantly recognizable from their hair, noses or jawline, then the journalists were made obvious by their cameras, lanyards, and phones held in palms for recording interviews. We spotted a Washington Post press badge and microphones from the Associated Press and the Daily Mail. There were also TikTokers holding clip-on mics, iPhone cameras pointed in all directions. Everyone had come to play.
“I actually don’t care for Timothée Chalamet at all, which is why I think it’s ironic that I’m here right now,” Sam Schall, a content producer and blog writer told us in between his interviews. “I, personally, am here because I want to get content for myself. I’m being very selfish.”
As the two of us pushed through a growing crowd, a man in a top hat suddenly rushed by, gripping a penny-farthing. It had to be Po. We chased after him as he rolled through the Washington Square Arch, past the Liam Payne memorial and what appeared to be the New York magazine Lookbook setup, emerging on the other side to a red carpet and an arena of observers. On his tail were officers from the NYC Parks Enforcement Patrol, ready to shut the contest down before it could even start.
“We had no idea how large this was gonna be,” Po yelled to the crowd. “We’re gonna have our producers talk to the enforcement over there. We mean no harm—this is a peaceful gathering, and we want to cooperate. … All we can do now is be nice and have a good potential five minutes of doing this. So without further ado, if you are a Timothée, can you please come to the front?”
Like Avengers, they assembled: a mass of tall Timothées and short Timothées, many with black curly hair, others donning Wonka hats or Arrakis-inspired outfits. Somewhere in the back, the park officers were blowing their whistles for dispersal. Sharks to blood, photographers surged in, kneeling face-to-face with the Timothées.
“This is the money shot!” someone shouted.
Things were getting out of hand. A hungry crowd of content creators were pushing closer and closer to the Timothées as the Parks Enforcement Patrol became increasingly insistent that we all had to leave. Two photographers who had been trying to set up a white backdrop against the facade of the Arch received a citation for not having a permit.
“We’re going to make a quick pilgrimage across the street,” Po announced to the crowd. Then, he began to move, one of his compatriots carrying an oversized check for $50. Through the streets of New York, hundreds followed behind, with photographers rushing to the front. In the heat of the moment, the two of us got separated, with one of us—Heather—sprinting alongside Po to the new location, and the other—Kristin—stranded by the Arch.
At 1:30 p.m., a text blast was sent out to those who had RSVP’d for the event. It read, “WE CANNOT BE STOPPED! COME TO MERCER PLAYGROUND DOWN THE STREET TO COME MEET OUR TIMOTHÉES!”
That memo, though, wasn’t well received through the chaos. A massive crowd remained at Washington Square Park, confused over where the contest would take place. At one point, Spencer DeLorenzo, a 22-year-old Timothée lookalike, was hoisted onto someone's shoulders. Around him, the crowd cheered, their phones high in the air.
We had interviewed DeLorenzo earlier in the week after finding him through the Partiful invitation. “I don’t really find this to be that big of a deal,” DeLorenzo had told us the Friday before the competition. “Like, it’s exciting, but I’m not going to obsess over it,” If anything, he just hoped to meet new people at the event.
As DeLorenzo told us later when we reconnected in Mercer Playground after the competition, he did end up meeting at least one new person: the real Timothée Chalamet. In a video that has since gone viral, DeLorenzo can be seen posing for a picture when suddenly, another person moves into the frame.
“This guy puts his hand on my shoulder, and I’m like, ‘He’s probably another guy,’” DeLorenzo said. When he looked to see who was squeezing into the shot, he saw the namesake of the competition himself. “I was like, ‘Holy shit.’” The two shook hands and even chatted for a moment. While DeLorenzo wouldn’t win the actual lookalike competition happening a few blocks away, he was dubbed “The People’s Timothée” back by the Arch.
At the same time as we were collecting recordings and photos, the entire day was being narrated in real-time on TikTok and Twitter. People gobbled up angles of the real Timothée’s arrival and spread the story of a Timothée lookalike’s arrest. (We later learned that four individuals were detained at the event, but it isn’t clear how many were actually Timothées.)
“Obviously, it’s changed a lot in those years that I’ve covered stuff like this,” Scott Lynch, a freelance photojournalist on assignment for Gothamist, said to us. He told us that in the past, it used to be just journalists who would show up to cover the event. The rest of the crowd would be people having fun. “Now, a lot of people show up to get their own content.”
Far from a spontaneous, low-budget production, this contest had been a highly orchestrated event planned in advance, masterminded by the same person who got a crowd of hundreds to watch him eat cheeseballs and once uploaded a YouTube video titled “I Spent 200 Days Undercover as a Furry.” The event was sponsored by Partiful, Po told us, and every Timothée that competed was supposedly going to receive $50 for just participating. Although Partiful did not respond to our questions about the level of its involvement, the company’s CEO wrote on Twitter that the Partiful team was “there to support” Po.
“We ultimately got hit with a $500 fine + whatever it'll take to bail the detained Chalamet out (we're gonna get you out king) but like Anthony said: ‘That's the price of culture,’” Paige Nguyen, Po’s producer, later wrote in a post on LinkedIn. “...Our job is the internet.”
There was, in fact, a winner in the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest. After a final faceoff between two of the Timothées at Mercer Playground, the honor went to Miles Mitchell, a 21-year-old college student from Staten Island who dressed up in Willy Wonka garb and had enthusiastically thrown candy at the crowd.
During the semifinal round of the competition, the Timothées had been asked by a judge to name a change they wanted to see in the world. Mitchell’s answer was “Free Palestine,” a response met by the crowd with cheers. As he would later tell us, it was something he was personally passionate about.
“Since that question was prompted to me, that kind of just came out of my heart,” Mitchell said.
As the competition wound down, we went over to get in the line of reporters and photographers looking to talk to the lingering Timothées. We asked Mitchell if other media outlets had asked him about the statement he had made.
“Honestly, not really,” he replied. Mercer Playground was emptied out, with just a few stragglers left. Without the bravado of a crowd, the scene felt a little strange. Mitchell stood next to a comically tall trophy. It was shiny but plastic.
That evening, we returned uptown to the office of the Columbia Daily Spectator, where we had our regular Sunday shifts as student journalists. When it came to the one question people really wanted to ask us—Did you see Timothée?—all we had was a disappointing answer. We weren’t the only ones. In the park, Kristin overheard someone else in the crowd. “I have a question,” they said. “Did you guys see the real Timothée? Can someone Airdrop me the video so I can say that I saw him?”
With one of us literally running off to cover the competition as it moved, and the other getting stuck at the back of the crowd, both of us missed the man himself. But there was no angle that we could cover that wouldn’t be captured a thousand other times.
