Anthony Po staged the Timothée Chalamet lookalike competition. Here’s how he did it

In September, something fairly innocuous happened: posters were put up around New York announcing a Timothée Chalamet lookalike competition. The instructions implored all who resembled the 28-year-old actor to meet at Washington Square Park on the last Sunday of October. The prize? A modest $50.

And the rest – if you’re active on X, Instagram and TikTok, anyway – is history. Last weekend, flavours of Timothées running the gamut from Willy Wonka Timmy to Bob Dylan Timmy and Paul Atreides Timmy congregated at the event in their thousands (over nine thousand, to be precise).

Among others competing for the title of best Timothée dupe: street style Timmys and pug Timmy (us neither). Then, the man, the myth, the legend – Lisan al Gaib if you’re nasty – Real Timothée turned up. At first, he was swallowed by an ocean of replicas before screams erupted and all hell broke loose. Game as ever, he was snapped hugging several iterations of himself.

Who the hell is the person behind all this, you ask? The person responsible for sparking life into an otherwise mundane Sunday evening?

Anthony Po, a 23-year-old Jersey City content creator, who happens to be behind a series of recent internet gags. ​“I’ve been advised to say no, but I did know [the competition] would get a lot of attention,” he says. Very much on theme, he’s sporting his own Wonka-esque top hat, shirt and bow tie.

​“I mean, realistically, I’m not unfamiliar with throwing big events and getting people to care about stuff on socials. I knew it was a fun idea that people would flock to.”

​“Unfamiliar with throwing events” would be an understatement. New Jersey-based Po, has been making content for eight years. He studied marketing at Rutgers University, which ​“did not help me professionally, but gave me a lot of good memories and fun times,” as he puts it.

After graduating, he lived in a Las Vegas creator house, then YouTuber Mr. Beast took Po under his wing for four months. Po then quit YouTube for good – that is, until he cooked up this Timmy scheme.

Sunday’s event was just another notch in his belt: back in April, thousands gathered in Manhattan’s Union Square Park to watch Po, clad in an orange ski mask, devour cheese ball puffs. It subsequently earned him the title ​“cheeseball man”, even earning himself an arch-nemesis in the process.

​“My team and I are creating wholesome, fun events that people tell their grandkids stories [about] in 50 years. Plus, my friends always say I look like Timothée Chalamet.”

The lookalike competition, beyond bringing Timmys of every ilk together, helped unify the internet beyond what Po could’ve dreamed: the Associated Press hosted a live stream that drew in 30,000 viewers. TikTok user Sommer Mae Campbell handed out printed business cards to find her very own Mr Chalamet (it was a success). New York-based actor, Lauren Brodauf, even used the event as an opportunity to propel her career by turning out a short film. ​“Definitely a historic pop culture moment,” said one X user. Another pointed out that all we want right now is more weird, niche social media moments to escape the hellscape that is the world right now. Hear, hear!

There was something for everyone, and despite one arrest (more on that later), the mood was far from dampened. Po’s antics have now thrust him even further into the limelight, and he’s got no intention of shying away from it.

Hey Anthony! It’s been a crazy 24 hours for you. What made you want to host a Timothée Chalamet lookalike competition on a random day in October?

The date was super arbitrary. Me and my team hung up 50 posters. If it’s funny enough, it will pick up steam. That’s kind of our MO, like, we know that if it’s a good idea, it’ll be seen.

Ninety nine per cent of the discourse is super positive. Just as I was hopping on this call, I saw somebody wrote a hit piece on it, but I’m used to criticism. Again, the way I see it, being criticised by somebody hits you hard, but to be written negatively about by a journalist, it’s like, that’s why you’re writing about the news. And I’m making it.

The posters were seen by Timothée Chalamet himself in the end. What did you think when you saw the picture of him walking past the lookalike poster?

People DM’d the picture to me and I was aware of how quickly [the poster] spread because, again, me and my team have done [something] almost exactly like this [before]. Back in April, I ate a jar of cheese balls in front of 3,000 people.

You mentioned that your friends have said you look like Timothée. Were you tempted to enter the competition yourself?

I think it was a bit unfair for the person hosting it to enter. There’s some definite bias there. So I tried to avoid that.

Right. What was the scene like when you arrived at Washington Park Square?

I went over to the scene close to 10 minutes before [the start] with my team, and we were like, ​“Oh, this is gonna be a mess.”

And how did the voting system work?

We had a couple contingencies depending on how many Timothées would show up: we had 20 in the competition. By that, I mean 20 that we allowed. We let the crowd say yay or nay, and then, like Tinder, we swiped them [left or right]. The judges picked the final three, we asked them some questions, and then picked the winner.

Willy Wonka Timothée Chalamet won. Why did you pick him?

Charming, charming young man. Good costume. Good bit. The four judges were all influencers and creators. One girl, Chloe [Forero], posted about the competition and we decided to fly her to New York from LA to judge the competition.

Timothée Chalamet actually showed up. Did you know he would make an appearance?

I knew he was aware of the event, because we have some friends that are production assistants on the set that he’s on right now, and they said he was talking about it. But my team and I thought there was no way that he’d show up and that it would be irresponsible for his security to let him go – and then, you know, I guess he did.

Did you get to meet Timmy?

There were probably close to 10,000 people trying to pull up. It was so hectic. As we were leaving the park, he pulled up. My team and I were moving everybody to another park two minutes away so we missed him. A couple of people in the competition ended up taking pictures with him, which was super cute. But, you know, we had to be there for the people. We weren’t there for Timmy.

One of the Timothées was arrested and you posted a TikTok video saying you’d pay his bail. What happened?

The cops were very aggressive. They released the one [person] I know of [who got arrested] immediately and gave him [a court] summons. I’m currently working with him.

I’ll pay however much I need from [my] own pocket and [I’m hoping] to raise money through my upcoming YouTube video.

People turned up to the event hoping to find love. Was that a surprise?

I hope people found love. It would be my dream for a pair to get married at the end of all this.

Why do you stage events like this?

I think creators – and I will go publicly on the record about this – are so lame nowadays. Every creator just takes the path of least resistance. I’ve got tons of friends who have commentary channels, but from a creative standpoint, from an artist standpoint, I have zero respect for commentating channels.

It’s cool, like, get your bag. But I think you don’t deserve to be called a creator if you’re just a commentary channel, right? I want to create, I don’t even care as much about people seeing my face. I want to create things in this world and put them out there and give people things to talk about.

Tell me about cheese ball man.

People want something dumb to rally behind. And it worked. People don’t even know who I am and know who cheese ball man is, which is really funny. I was going to be done with the whole cheese ball man character, because I like to move on to the next thing. And then a fan of mine made like a super villain account, and he calls himself Corn Head Killer. He gained like 250,000 followers in like a month. So I challenged him to a boxing match.

From a Timmy lookalike competition to fighting your villain dressed up as cheese ball man. What do you gain from creating?

It’s a shame most internet content is negative. It’s tough, because that’s how you make money and that’s how you sustain yourself [as a creator]. But I feel like I’ve proven you can have eight years of an online career just trying to chase creativity and have fun and not fall into a rabbit hole.

Fake lookalike posters are flying around the internet. The people want a Jeremy Allen White competition next. Will you be hosting another one?

I don’t like people knowing that I’m behind things. So for me to do another lookalike competition to be very obvious that I’m behind it. I’m definitely not going to do a lookalike competition again. But anytime something fun or interesting pops up in New York City, there’s a chance that I may or may not be behind it, I guess.

Can you tell us what you’re planning next?

Let’s just say it’ll be maybe bigger but less hectic.

If you could enter yourself into a look alike competition, Timothée aside, who would it be?

People always say I look like a young Wayne Gretzky. I think I look a lot like a lot of NHL hockey players, unfortunately: a basic white dude with somewhat wavy hair.