Seeing Double: A Rise in Kim Kardashian Look-alikes
On last week’s episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kim and Kris went on a totally typical mother-daughter outing to the plastic surgeon's office, so that Kris could look into getting her ear lobes reduced. While they were there, the surgeon was excited to meet Kim, telling her that his clients asked him to make them look like her far more often than any other celebrity.
This news (if you can call it that) isn’t exactly surprising. Google “Kim Kardashian look-alike” and you’ll find countless articles with titles like “Kim Kardashian look-alike spent $30,000 on Plastic Surgery” or “This Woman Spent $470,000 to Look Like Kim Kardashian.” The fascinating aspect is that these women aren’t mere creepy superfans — they’re businesswomen who have found that looking like Kim can instantly turn them into social media influencers. Sonia Ali and Fyza Ali (@soniaxfyza) are dead ringers for Kim and Kylie, and they have 744,000 Instagram followers on their joint account. According to forbes.com, a post from an account with 100,000 thousand followers can be worth $5,000.
Many, however, shy away from admitting that the resemblance is anything but natural. Kamilla Osman (@kamiosman), another Kim twin, said in an interview with People that her resemblance to the reality TV star can all be explained by the fact that she’s from Azerbejan, a country that borders Armenia. She’s admitted to getting plastic surgery on her nose and lips, but says the purpose of that was not to look like Kim.
This subculture of social media influencers who look exactly like Kim Kardashian is an interesting reflection of current society. The idea of a celebrity impersonator isn’t new, nor is showing a plastic surgeon photos of certain traits you want to copy from a celebrity. However, the idea of deliberately changing your own face to look more like someone who is a reality TV superstar, and then using that resemblance to sell Instagram posts is an entirely new cultural idea and is utterly terrifying.