Slouching Towards Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist

Madeleine Connors finds Gen Zers serving looks (and tennis balls) at the “Challengers” look-alike contest.

By Madeleine ConnorsNovember 29, 2024

ART AND PATRICK LOOK ALIKE COMPETITION, Westwood Park Tennis Courts, Los Angeles, November 24, 2024.

I am too old to be here. It’s a month before my 30th birthday, and young men surround me, college students who have convened because they slightly resemble movie stars (we tell ourselves stories in order to live). It’s a cloudy afternoon at Westwood Park near UCLA, and a giggling crowd gathers to gawk at men who—vaguely—look like the stars of this year’s hit film Challengers. This celebrity look-alike contest is the latest social media phenomenon that has swept the country.

The center is not holding. I ask Jonah, a friendly young man dressed as Josh O’Connor, why we are here. His answer makes me howl with delight. “It’s a recession indicator,” he exclaims. “It’s giving Great Depression. It’s like those Shirley Temple look-alike contests for a nickel.” We’re on the cusp of a cultural and economic crisis, the recent college grad tells me calmly, but he concludes: “It’s also Gen Z wanting to participate in the media they consume.” The social hemorrhaging bleeds into the Westwood Tennis Courts, racket in hand.

If I were a more cynical person, I might say that previous generations organized gatherings for anti-war protests, while Gen Z will be defined as a generation that mobilized for a $50 cash prize based on their likeness to cute movie stars. They carefully arrange their personalities around the media they consume—Fleabag (2016–19), The Office (2005–13), and now Challengers—in lieu of a personal constitution. I might argue it is a symptom of cultural malaise that young people have a hysterical need to see themselves in the media they consume—our metric for beauty distilled into our affinity to coveted famous people. This position, however, makes me feel like a scold. I’m not one. In truth, it’s hard to be in a bad mood watching college students boo at a Mike Faist look-alike for announcing that he has a girlfriend.

“People keep telling me: you look like that guy!” says a man in a red backwards hat and a Stanford shirt who does look astonishingly like Mike Faist. The look-alikes are dressed in the default uniform of a man who likes you but doesn’t want anything serious. Tennis rackets litter the ground. The onlookers are mostly smirking girls, cameras in hand and shrieking with excitement. I am relieved there is also a look-alike contest for Tashi, Zendaya’s character from the film. Otherwise, it would simply be an assembly of attractive white men in matching tennis cosplay, which strikes me as an ominous image. A group of female college students call into a megaphone at the contestants. “We won’t rank the Tashis because they’re all perfect,” the girls announce to applause. One of the Josh O’Connor contestants reveals that he’s single. The girls break into cheers. I later watch a sheepish girl approach him. “What’s your Instagram handle?” she says nervously. It occurs to me that this pageantry is an elaborate ritual for young women to ogle handsome boys. The girls approach the contestants and ask for their social media usernames as if they’re catching Pokémon.

I introduce myself as a writer to the girls who organized the event. They seem genuinely stunned by my interest, that I am taking their antics very seriously. I ask them why they decided to hold the event. “We’re big fans of the movies!” they say in unison. I thank them and walk away. “The press is here! She’s press!” I hear someone yell in my direction. I grow self-conscious as college students study me while I scribble in a notebook.

Later, a tennis player from the court asks me if I know what the commotion was about. “It’s a Challengers look-alike contest,” I say, faintly humiliated to know the answer. “Okay, that’s fun,” she says unbothered, before serving a tennis ball. I expected her to be annoyed at the frivolity, but the sun broke through the clouds, and she’s right: it is fun.

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Photo by contributor.

LARB Short Takes live event reviews are published in partnership with the nonprofit Online Journalism Project and the Independent Review Crew.