There is a meme going around on Facebook this week asking folks to post a picture to their profile of their Celebrity Doppelgänger. First things first, while I understand the word has come to mean "double" or "look-alike", what it really means is "the ghostly double of a living person, a sinister form of bilocation". For the purposes of this post, I'm just going to say "look-alike".I have been told countless times that I look like Drew Barrymore (that's the person on the left if you are unfamiliar with her visage). While I think Drew Barrymore is very pretty and attractive, I always wonder why people feel the need to compare others' appearances to that of celebrities. Don't get me wrong, I do it too. But when you tell someone he or she "looks just like so-and-so" what you are really saying is "you look like so-and-so when they get their picture taken in the grocery store parking lot by paparazzi". Because, I know for a fact that even on my best day, I would not actually be mistaken for Drew Barrymore.
My friend Jennifer has been compared to Audrey Hepburn, and Scott gets compared to Matt Dillon and Jim Carey. Those are very flattering comparisons. But what if someone said "you look just like Bea Arthur" or "is Dick Cheney your dad, because man, you look JUST LIKE him!"? That would probably hurt your feelings and piss you off. In reality, you should already be hurt and pissed off, for being told you look like someone when they were caught on laundry day in their old sweats by a shutterbug. Hey, I'm just sayin' is all!
