Twinning Tool Recognizes the Celebrity in You

by Linda Parham

So you think you look like Kate Middleton, or your Mom has always said you bear a striking resemblance to the young Katharine Hepburn? Get ready to test out your most flattering lookalike hopes by heading over to PopSugar’s new celebrity twinning app at #Twinning. Find your match among Hollywood actresses, punk rock stars and old-school politicians. The new app shares Google’s Arts and Culture Face Match aim to reveal your twin. Instead of searching among the world’s great paintings, however, @Twinning delves into a database of celeb images to connect with your famous pop culture doppelganger.

Use the tool to take a selfie or upload your own photo. You’ll receive five matches and a “twinning percentage” for your top lookalikes.

The results can be hysterically funny and off target. Vary the angles and hairstyles, and you can get dramatically different matches. Makeup and lighting will also provide a wide array of results. Hair color seems to make a big impact in the app’s selection. Hide your dark hair under a wig, and your twin might go from Katharine Hepburn to Brigitte Bardot.

And the #Twinning app seems inclined to tell women that they look like guys. The app delivered noticeably more male matches than Google’s Arts and Culture Face Match when I experimented. Maybe I was having a bad makeup day when I tried it out. I’ve always thought that Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses is one of the prettiest hard rockers, no problem. But c’mon. Gary Oldman? I take comfort in the tool twinning me with Pink and Christina Applegate. But Donald Trump? Jeff Bridges?

The New York Times recently ran a story that said artificial intelligence software is only as smart as the data that trains it. The story quoted a study that said one widely-used facial recognition data set was estimated to be more than 75 percent male and more than 80 percent white. So that tidbit may explain the number of grizzled men who resemble me. I’m feeling better since reading the Times about the male twins that PopSugar handed me.

By this week almost 50,000 people had tried out the #twinning database. Join them, and you may not find the software agrees you’re a ringer for Gigi Hadid. But your vanity may be tickled to discover #Twinning thinks you look just like a noted French actress, film director and screenwriter. Hats off to Nicole Garcia. I’m flattered! Just like Google’s Arts and Culture Face Match, this is one addictive app. Maybe I’ll keep going back until I match up with Lady Bird’s Greta Gerwig.

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