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☆ The Fleeting Comforts of the Celebrity Look-Alike Contest
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-22 | by ( Amanda Hess | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It may be a coincidence that the celebrity look-alike competition returned to prominence just as American citizens were voting in what some called “the most significant presidential election in our lifetimes.” But once it happened, the appeal was obvious. Here was a different kind of democratic event: a totally insignificant one, in which attractive men with slightly off-kilter features were lined up in public and ranked by the roaring crowd. At the first contest, which convened a flock of Timothée Chalamet doubles in Manhattan last month, the New York Police Department showed up, deemed it an “unscheduled demonstration” and arrested four people. They are typically publicized with posters on lampposts, staged in public parks and accompanied by meager prizes. The Mescal double won 20 euro “or three pints”; the White winner received $50 and a pack of Marlboro Reds.

Persons: Trump, doppelgängers, Jeremy Allen White, Paul Mescal, Dev Patel, Harry Styles Organizations: New York Police Department, Marlboro Reds Locations: Manhattan, Chicago, Dublin, San Francisco, London

The hum of a peaceful New York City afternoon was broken by chaos Sunday as Washington Square Park played host to a viral Timothée Chalamet lookalike competition. Miles Mitchell, left, winner of the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest, came dressed as Willy Wonka, whom Chalamet, right played in the film “Wonka.” AP; Warner Bros. I’m gonna win $50.”As Washington Square Park became overcrowded, the red carpet (yes, a real red carpet) was uprooted and the Timothées began a panicked pilgrimage to a smaller park nearby. Contestants gather for the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in Washington Square Park in New York on Sunday. Stefan Jeremiah / AP“I really love Timothée.

Persons: Chalamet, ” Police didn’t, “, ”, Tamir Omari, ” Chalamet, Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, Miles Mitchell, Willy Wonka, Wonka, Paul Atreides, Bob Dylan, Timmy, Dempsey Bobbitt, I’m, Stefan Jeremiah, Madeline Berns, Rutgers University . Berns, Berns, “ It’s, ” Omari, Kylie Jenner, Mitchell Organizations: Washington Square Park, Associated Press, ” Police, AP, Warner Bros, ”, Washington, Rutgers University Locations: New York City, Washington, New York

☆ How AI is changing OnlyFans and adult content creation, from chatting to 'AI twins,' and where the future is headed
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-07 | by ( Marta Biino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Many AI adult influencers have turned to OnlyFans competitor Fanvue to monetize their content. MySentient has been investing in creating "sentient" AI chatbots based on people that range from adult creators like Amouranth to Jesus. Elaina St James has used different AI tools to generate images of herself in different contexts and outfits. To create these characters, they use a variety of AI tools, including Unstable Diffusion, an AI image generator that focuses on NSFW content. Others see the power of AI but also the issues it could create for the adult industry as a whole.

Persons: Riley Reid, Ana Levy, Isla Moon, Jada Sparks, Fanvue, it's, OnlyFans, Fortune, Riley Reid's Clona, immortalize, Riley, MySentient, Amouranth, Jesus, Reese Leysen, Leysen, We've, Robert Weiss, that's, she'd, James, Elaina, James Level, —, Eva AI, MyClub.ai, Eva, MyClub, Jessica Moore, Elaina St James, St James, Zoe Fox, Aika Kittie, Margot Robbie, Influencer Sophie Annaston, she's, Sophie Annaston, who's, It's, Charles Lyle Organizations: Business, MyClub, AVN, Media Locations: Philippines, India, Pakistan, Canada, Spanish, Fanvue, Lipa

☆ A UPenn student started a YouTube channel. In weeks, her face was stolen on China's social media.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

That message included a link to a video on Xiaohongshu, a social media platform rapidly gaining steam in China. The student started her self-empowerment channel in November and has so far published eight videos and seven YouTube Shorts. The Xiaohongshu deepfakes of other YouTubers do the same. In a matter of about 10 minutes, BI found deepfake videos of at least five caucasian women on Xiaohongshu. But at least one Chinese deepfake version of Blakely has a different agenda to share on Xiaohongshu.

Persons: —, Olga Loiek, Loiek, Vladimir Putin, Loeik, Weibo, someone's, Lyu Siwei, it's, Haibing Lu, they've, Xiaohongshu, Natasha, she's, Annie, Sophia Elena, Katyusha, China, Lana Blakely, Blakely, Elizabeth Filips, Serbia, Filips, Lyu, Vincent Conitzer, Conitzer, Lu, Lyu who's, he's, Roy, Ari Lightman, she'll Organizations: Service, Business, Kremlin, YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, Media, University at Buffalo, Santa Clara University, University of Pennsylvania, BI, Russia, Institute for, Oxford University, Social, Carnegie Mellon University Locations: Munich, China, Moscow, Ukraine, Santa, China's Heilongjiang, Germany, Xiaohongshu, Russian, Russia, Stockholm, Xiaohongshu London, Pakistan

☆ Susie Essman, the Scene-Stealer Who Makes Larry David Lose It
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Melena Ryzik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The comedian Susie Essman spots them regularly, out in the urban wild: fashion doppelgängers. “That’s a total Susie Greene outfit,” she said, spying a woman entering the restaurant in a hooded, salmon-orange jumpsuit crosshatched with mint green slashes. Power clashing is the life force of Susie Greene, the singular character that Essman has inhabited on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” since the HBO series, created by Larry David, began in 2000. As Greene, the much put-upon wife of David’s manager, played by Jeff Garlin, Essman is more than just a fan favorite. She is also the person who, her castmates said, makes David crack up most regularly.

Persons: Susie Essman, “, Susie Greene, ”, she’s, Larry David, Greene, Jeff Garlin, —, wilder, castmates, David Organizations: Cafe Luxembourg, HBO, “

☆ Mark Zuckerberg just previewed Meta's new VR avatars – and they don't suck
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-29 | by ( Tom Carter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Mark Zuckerberg showed off Meta's new photorealistic VR avatars in his first "Metaverse interview." Zuckerberg was mocked on social media last year for posting a selfie of his cartoonish VR avatar. AdvertisementAdvertisementMark Zuckerberg has demoed Meta's brand new photorealistic avatars, and they are scarily lifelike. And unlike the company's original Metaverse avatars , which were mocked for being legless, dead-eyed, and deeply disconcerting, these projections are extremely realistic. The photorealistic projections are a dramatic improvement over the cartoonish avatars used for Horizon Worlds, Meta's free VR gaming and social platform.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg, —, Lex Fridman, Meta, Zuckerberg's, Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg Organizations: Service, Eiffel

☆ Naomi Klein Explores Her Own and Your Doppelgänger - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Naomi Klein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I sometimes wondered what I had done to deserve my doppelgänger woes. Doppelgängers, which combine the German words for doppel (double) with gänger (goer), are often regarded as warnings, or omens. In an attempt to better understand the warnings carried by my doppelgänger experience, I spent many evenings immersing myself in the rich repertory of doppelgänger films. Until the underground doppelgängers get tired of the arrangement and wreak havoc. Postulating that doppelgängers were tools to express sublimated desires and terrors, it was written in 1914, just as the First World War began.

Persons: Jordan Peele’s, “, ”, Otto Rank, Sigmund Freud, Postulating, Harry Tucker Jr Locations: Austrian

☆ Are These the Most Expensive Jeans in the World?
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | More About Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

That was where, as golden hour set in, a magic Valentino show began — with Kaia Gerber in a pair of jeans and a white shirt. Granted, they weren’t just any jeans: they were made from silk gazar entirely embroidered in micro beads dyed 80 different shades of indigo to resemble denim, but still. They looked like jeans. Jeans — or their very fancy doppelgängers — have been the biggest trend of the week. There were more jeans, likewise made from trompe l’oeil beading, in the Jean Paul Gaultier collection guest designed by Julien Dossena, and lots of jeans in all stages of distress at Balenciaga, which also were not denim at all but oil-painted canvas that took two and a half months to create.

Persons: Valentino, Kaia Gerber, upcycled Levi’s, Jean Paul Gaultier, Julien Dossena Locations: Paris, Chantilly

☆ Let's set the table for the second half by reflecting on this year's hated bull market
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-02 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +18 min

You don't get the best first-half Nasdaq rally in 40 years simply because the Federal Reserve did this, or the yield curve in the bond market did that. It was almost as if it was prosaic to seek profits, like, "How dare you defy the teachings of the yield curve, you foolish soon-to-be- broke apostate." It was the second move, the second week of March, that told the second tale of the first half: the fall of Silicon Valley Bank. Here we had an out-of-nowhere collapse of a well-known seemingly well-run bank that ran afoul, again, of the yield curve. No company could rival Club stocks Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft and Meta Platforms (META) — nice metamorphous there and Tesla , not a Club name.

Persons: William Jennings Bryan, Gandhi, Bud, Altman, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, Jensen, mutt, Cezanne, Monet, Shakespeare's Henry IV, Carl Quintanilla, David Faber, da, Lisa's, Wendy's, Scylla, Charybdis, ChatGPT, haut, Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson, aren't, They've, isn't, Goldman Sachs, Tesla, Didn't, Freddie, Lehman, Jerome Powell, We've, it's, Eli Lilly, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim, Mad Organizations: Nasdaq, Federal Reserve, Intel, The New York Times, Veterans, Club, Microsoft, Nvidia, Globe Theatre, Silicon Valley Bank, Fed, Apple, Meta, RCA, US Steel, Washington Mutual, AIG, IBM, Jim Cramer's Charitable, CNBC, NYSE Locations: America, Philadelphia, OpenAI, Oz, Queens, mull, Ithaca, Weimar, Silicon, Republic, Valley, Delray , Florida, Alleghany, China

☆ Is Putin using a body double? Listen here: Skeptics say spotting a decoy is all in the ears.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The trip to the besieged region renewed claims that Putin uses body doubles for public appearances. The original Washington Post article has been updated to remove references to Putin using a body double. However, the Post isn't the first publication to reference the possibility of a Putin body double. It cannot be repeated," though he has not offered concrete evidence to back up the claim that Putin uses a body double. Ears as evidenceWhile Budanov's claims about Putin's health or use of body doubles cannot be verified, the use of ears as forensic evidence has been documented for decades.

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