As campus welcomes dusk, a blond Nikita Strygun gracefully gathers the dark-haired Adrien Chaput, bridal-style, in his arms — much to the joy of a crowd gathered outside the Nest. Before that night, the two had never met. This was a culminating moment of UBC’s unofficial Heated Rivalry look-alike contest, where hopeful contestants faced off in a series of model walks, hockey drills and dramatic readings in an attempt to be crowned the döppelganger of one of the hit show’s leads
Nayis Majumder and Justina He — both gender, race, sexuality and social justice (GRSJ) students — are the student-organizer duo behind the contest, as well as some of this year’s other pop culture happenings. Last fall, they planned the Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice Undergraduates Association’s (GRSJUA) performative contest, where genuinely performative individuals and wannabes alike took to the Nest plaza in their tote bags and carabiners. Derived from the then-trending notion of the ‘performative male,’ participants were encouraged to embody the tenets of ‘performativity’ to the greatest extent possible.
That event marked He’s first time officially working on an event with the GRSJUA, but Majumder is an active organizer, notably running their self-founded social justice nonprofit SHARE, which advocates for queer, disabled and racialized communities by developing workshops and fundraising for organizations like Reconciliation Canada and the Hogan’s Alley Society.
Though the main motivation in organizing these contests is to be “a little bit whimsical [and] fun,” He said such events also allow for meaningful conversations on gender, identity and appearance to take place in spaces beyond classrooms and comment sections. Their ‘performative contest,’ in particular, was geared towards fostering reflections on intersectional feminism and the shame that seems to come with exhibiting more conventionally feminine interests or behaviours. For He and Majumder, events like these provide us an opportunity to engage with such issues with intention, in ways that transcend doomscrolling. “We're seeing all of these trends pop up, but we're not having a real, tangible space in which we can connect with people outside of the digital space,” said He. “The goal with both of [the events] was kind of similar in the sense that we wanted to … create a space in which people could bond over their shared interest.”
The look-alike contest is a 2024 trend that has yet to completely die, which says something. Its persistence is perhaps indicative of how this genre of event meets a particular need — a cheap, low-barrier, IRL-but-to-be-digested-later-online reason to communally gather and squawk in good faith. The look-alike contest’s appeal could lie in the amusing act of imitation itself, or, more likely, in a shared desire for greater community engagement. What once started as varietal white men sweeping American public parks in the hopes of a slight increase in cultural capital appears more and more to have become a collective recourse to the value of third spaces.
Majumder and He are of the shared opinion that above all else, such events provide an opportunity for low-stakes socialization. In look-alike contests, there is “no wall of ice” between attendees, because the event’s raison d’être is explicitly, visually obvious: you already have something in common, so there’s no need to brainstorm conversation topics — all you have to do is laugh alongside each other. But why look-alikes, specifically? Why did McGill host their own Heated Rivalry contest? Why the Finn Wolfhard look-alike event last December? Some consider the event type’s popularity to be demonstrative of a group recourse to familiarity — we’ve all seen this or that show, we’ve all seen the Jeremy Allen White underwear ads, we’ve all read some digest about that godforsaken Paul Mescal love triangle. It is comforting to see a remake, sometimes.
But look-alike contests are not merely celebrations of the comforting past and fleetingly-trending present — they are also an opportunity to disconnect from the stress of everyday life. He was inspired by a course she took on fandoms and how participating in fan culture can influence people’s lives. Naturally, people want a place to come together and reflect on their love for this piece of media with others who feel the same. He also sees it as offering attendees “a feeling of escapism. The world is, unfortunately, a scary place right now, and lots of terrible things are happening. Spending an afternoon dressing up as a performative man, or dressing up as a character from Heated Rivalry, makes it feel less serious and daunting … It gives you a sense of comfort.”
The physical, on-the-ground reality of the event makes all the difference. While one can very easily find others online who share similar interests, it can be isolating to only engage somewhat passively online. Comment sections can inspire a sense of affinity, but to what degree of satisfaction? He likens the in-person nature of the event to a live concert; to be standing next to others who share in your enthusiasm “can make you feel that much more grounded in the experience,” she said. “There are people, right now, in your vicinity — not thousands of miles away, that you can only access on your internet — that think like you, who have the same passions and interests as you,” Majumder said. “[It’s not] hypothetical … it’s tangible.”
The Heated Rivalry contest wasn’t affiliated with the GRSJUA due to scheduling barriers — Majumder and He just did it for the love of the game. They like to joke that it was partly fuelled by a desire to overcome the (self-imposed?) allegations of being “one-hit wonders.”
The look-alike contest structure had been a shoo-in ever since they first flirted with the idea of hosting an event, but the exact subject wasn’t decided until much later on. At first, the organizers were tempted to search for UBC’s own Zohran Mamdani double — but Heated Rivalry’s current cultural impact, especially for queer people, was too perfect an opportunity to pass up. While past look-alike contests have garnered muted criticism in terms of their select interest in straight, white, male celebrities — or colloquially, the ‘white boy of the month’ — the trend’s most recent fixation on Heated Rivalry’s queer protagonists perhaps opens the door to greater inclusivity. Why not co-opt the show’s topicality, Majumder explained, as a means to foster a space on campus to celebrate queer joy on campus?
While nothing shimmers in the immediate organizing horizon for the pair, they remain open to the possibility of future events of the sort, determined to keep making spaces for students to be joyful, together.
