Doppelganger Week on Facebook: Who Started Doppelganger Week?

Doppelganger Week on Facebook has really taken off and become so popular that thousands are searching the web for 'what celebrity do I look like' and Celebrity Look Alike Generators to help them determine which celebrity they look like so they can upload their photo.

But who started Doppelganger Week on Facebook?

A few people are claiming to take credit for starting this phenomenon with a few Facebook pages dedicated to it.

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Chloë Carter saw our previous two posts and approached us saying that she started Doppelganger Week on Facebook as part of a group that she is admin of on the social networking site. Chloë's Facebook group is designed to have a new challenge each week to keep all profile pictures fresh and interesting.

"I sat down on 1/23 to make the page" says Ms. Carter, "and Celebrity Doppelaganger was my favorite theme that I had though of so I decided to start with that one first."

Another group called Doppelganger Week also have their own page and told Ms. Carter that they had the idea in the works since 2008 to start this week. This group also has over 2,000 fans.

"As soon as I saw their page I was shocked and immediately wrote them asking who they were and why/how they decided to create this page now" says Ms. Carter; they replied saying that it was not a coincidence their group was started around the same time.

"If anything your release pushed us all to immediately release. An idea in development since early 2008" said the other Doppelganger Facebook page. They also offered to collaborate with Ms. Carter and to share credit. She says that "I would perhaps be open to it. I would like them to acknowledge me and my idea being released first."

Even MyHeritage, one of the Celebrity Look Alike Generator sites, says they are the ones that started the whole idea:

However, Huffington Post conducted an interview with a man called Bob Patel, who says he started Doppelganger Week:

Bob says it has taken off in really huge ways:

Ms. Carter says that she would like to ask Bob Patel some questions of her own. "Most importantly why/how is he credited with starting this" she says. "Does he have a page that he started, and if so when did he start it and what is it called."

We could not find any page dedicated to Celebrity Doppelganger Week started by Bob Patel.

There was however some controversy over the fact that Doppelganger Week on Facebook may be violating Facebook's Terms of Service, as you are not supposed to upload any photo that you don't own. A photo of a celebrity is probably something that you don't own yourself. 

Facebook has not released any statement about that however, and for now they seem not to care anyway.

Ms. Carter agrees. "I am not overly concerned with this issue" she says, "it seems like Facebook is not taking too much issue with it either, especially considering how much press they are getting from it."