The frequently asked questions section for the website Twin Strangers boldly declares that “Once you see someone who looks just like you, you can connect with them”. It’s an eloquent summary of its mission. Twin Strangers is a matching website, broadly similar to services like Tinder or even LinkedIn, though it caters for a more unusual demand. Namely, it matches you to your doppelgänger, or the person on the site who looks as much like you as possible. After both of you approve the match you can exchange emails and, if you wish, arrange to meet.
The website’s YouTube channel created a sensation last year when one of its videos, showing three DCU students competing to find and meet the person who most closely resembles them, went viral. In the video, one student, Niamh, is the first person to find a complete stranger who looks like her. After they meet up and change their hair and makeup to match, they look identical. Judging by the pair’s reaction, part of the website’s appeal is the startling recognition both parties experience either online or, in a minority of cases, in real life. For the people featured on Twin Strangers’s YouTube channel, which is admittedly a best-case scenario of the matchmaking, many might as well be looking at a sibling.
Philip Kampff, managing director of Vision Independent Production, the company responsible for Twin Strangers, tells me that the video prompted “10,000” Facebook messages per day to the Twin Strangers Facebook page from people who wanted to meet their doppelgänger. Luckily, the team happened to have an intern on staff with the skills to create the website.
Matching on Twin Strangers is partially automated and partially manual. When you create a profile, you submit at least two pictures that ideally give a clear view of your face. Then you select your ethnicity, gender and a number of facial features. You pick which of one of five categories your eyebrows fit into, for instance, and the question is accompanied by images so you can decide if you’re more ‘rounded’ or ‘soft angled.’ Your nose, meanwhile, fits into one of eight categories and your face shape into one of six. Then the matching system takes over and matches you to other active users who have made the same selections. On the next screen, you are presented with a page of results with whom you’ll at the very least have a resemblance. Next to each person is a cross or tick, so you can decide if they’re your doppelgänger. If you tick a box, the user in question is given a notification and a prompt to verify that you look alike.
“A TV format based on the project has been created and optioned in the United States and Canada, and during our interview he revealed that his team were working on stories in London and New York”
While researching for this feature, I was disappointed to find how few people look like me or at least how few have signed up to the website. Much as I wanted to tick a box to test the associated systems for this piece, I realised I would have been betraying the site’s objective and, rather than being perceived as their twin, I would’ve likely been rejected as having more of a passing resemblance to them. My matches and I might have looked at each other twice at a bus stop, but we’d be unlikely to embrace, take selfies and swap phone numbers. The Ukrainian I most closely resembled likely had better candidates. Twin Strangers purports to have over a million users and of course Irish users are only a small fraction of this. With this in mind, it’s not surprising that I’ve been unlucky given that people outside your ethnicity and gender are often unlikely to be matches.
Part of the problem is the membership scheme, which limits potential users. Twin Strangers has an extremely unusual funding model: namely, an upfront charge of $3.95 that allows you access for six months. Given that there are slim medium-term or long-term prospects of friendship with your Twin Stranger, since physical resemblance is no guarantee you and your match have anything in common, it is surprising that over a million people are willing to pay for the chance of a novelty. Kampff says that the company considered other monetisation models, such as advertising and sponsorship, but that ultimately the subscription has been a success. He views it “like a movie ticket”, where, for a low price, users can get constant enjoyment.
While the Twin Strangers website has been a success, it’s their YouTube channel that has been a sensation. Their videos have a reality TV aura to them, making them engaging and suspenseful, and the company covers travel expenses for a few great matches. They film their reactions as they meet up and help them to style each other in order to make them look increasingly identical. According to Kampff, the challenge for those who meet up in real life is “How can we look the most similar?”. Clearly, the videos captivate people, with the most popular reaching eight million views and counting. Moreover, the videos of strangers meeting regularly exceed 50,000 viewers. Kampff reports “an explosion” of signups to the website after every meetup video, which makes the project even more unusual given that YouTube channels traditionally make money through direct advertisement. He also reported that a TV format based on the project has been created and optioned in the United States and Canada, and during our interview he revealed that his team were working on stories in London and New York.
Vision Independent Production have experience primarily in television. They developed shows like Operation Transformation and The Restaurant and have sold their concepts both domestically and overseas. While the company is Irish, Kampff stated that the small market here meant they also had to target foreign markets in order to succeed. He explained that Twin Strangers has its origins in a television show they pitched, and that the YouTube channel was initially conceived as a proof of concept for how the show might work. He is conscious that there are different challenges associated with producing for television and YouTube, noting “there is a definite format” with television and he did not want Twin Strangers to be “overproduced”, which would not be appealing to an online audience. In this respect, Kampff compares it to the reality show Catfish, but is guarded about taking the comparison too far. Regardless, they have managed to captivate many into viewing and subscribing to their channel, producing it just right for social media audiences. On such a difficult platform to grow on due to the array of channels also striving for success, this is an incredible achievement. Many may have to buy subscribers after viewing information on sites like https://buyoutubeviews.com/buy-youtube-subscribers to achieve the same level of success.
“While it could be compared to reality television, Twin Strangers is the very opposite of the mean-spirited, standoffish attitudes we often associate with the genre”
Unlike Catfish, Twin Strangers is “not trying to trick people”, he says. It is, fundamentally, a positive experience. Indeed, even if like me, you fail to find a doppelgänger, it’s difficult to escape the positivity of Twin Strangers. Almost every profile picture has people smiling, and they have a policy of removing explicit content. The website can “connect two people who live on different sides of the world”, and according to Kampff, that is one of its positive characteristics. Moreover, Kampff claims that the reason the fee is low is to allow people from poorer regions access, particularly Latin America.
I’ve been matched with people in Europe, America and Asia and I’ve failed to recognise many of the flags altogether. Meanwhile, on YouTube the participants in the videos seem relentlessly cheerful and to find real joy in meeting and having their picture taken together.
Twin Strangers continues to grow with over 1.1 million users signed up to the site. Kampff is hopeful that as more people sign up existing users will be able to find matches, which is good news for me. They continue to investigate new technology for the site including facial recognition, which may also improve my chances, and they strive to release a meetup video at least once a month to keep up interest in the site.
While Twin Strangers may cater for a niche market, it is worth keeping an eye on. It is rare to find an interactive website that is both successful and pleasant. While it could be compared to reality television, Twin Strangers is the very opposite of the mean-spirited, standoffish attitudes we often associate with the genre. The challenge for Kampff and Twin Strangers is to maintain its community spirit, whilst continuing to grow to in excess of a million members.
