Who started Doppelganger Week on Facebook?

That is the question. I'm asking because I want to know who to thank. Until the last week of January, visitor stats to my relatively new blog was over 500 but definitely far from a thousand. Within the next 2 weeks, it rapidly skyrocketed to over 3,000 hits! I attribute these hits to one particular entry--how to find your doppelganger. This is all thanks to the latest and most viral of Facebook memes: Doppelganger Week.

"Meme" is derived from the Greek mneme and mimëma, meaning "memory" and "something imitated," respectively. An Internet meme is an idea or practice that spreads like wildfire through the Web and thus becoming pop culture. This includes viral videos, e-mail hoaxes, and other Web-based media turning obscure personalities into instant Internet celebrities, or e-lebrities (see YouTube).

Like the "change your fb status into your bra color to raise breast cancer awareness" meme, Doppelganger Week seemed to start out as an internal arrangement between Facebook friends to use as profile picture a photo of a celebrity whom you've been told you resemble. Soon enough, Facebook began to crawl with Megan Foxes and Robert Pattinsons, driving more and more users into a wild search for celebrity look-alike generators or facial recognition applications, such as MyHeritage.com, FaceDouble, and Find My Doppelganger.

NowPublic says that Chloë Carter this meme, while NYDailyNews gives credit to Bob Patel as Doppelganger Week's creator. Although the definite source of the meme is yet to be known, one thing is certain: there are too many people who want to find their "twin," especially the famous variety--whether out of curiosity or narcissism.

Doppelganger Week has spawned critic Facebook groups, such as "But... Your Doppelganger is hot, and you are really, really ugly," which, I must admit, is a bit funny albeit a tad harsh (if not cruel). Personally, I have mixed feelings about doppelgangers. It's exciting to know that somewhere out there, there's someone I resemble, someone that I'm totally unrelated to. At the same time, it makes me think that I look too common. I guess, the reason why finding our celebrity look-alike is so important for many is that it is a personal affirmation, in a way. It somehow gives you a sense that there's something likable, if not special, about you.

Cebu Dancing Inmates with Michael Jackson's Choreographer

As if you haven't seen it yet, the most recently memed Youtube video in the PI within the last 2 days is this: Cebu's world-famous dancing inmates! Oh, but it's not just another dance video from the viral hitmakers who rose to e-lebrity status via "Thriller" in 2007. Michael Jackson's (and Lady Gaga's as well) choreographer Travis Payne trained and danced with the inmates of Cebu Provincial Detention And Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC), along with dancers who are featured in MJ's post-humus "This Is It" video.




Would you believe that they trained for only 2 hours in 2 days? Only in the Philippines!


The Youtube clip was made available just a few days before the release of the Michael Jackson: This Is It DVD on January 26, 2010. To order your copy of the video, simply click on the image below.

Cure That Facebook Addiction

Do you find yourself tweeting or Facebooking when you should be working or studying instead? Like everything else, extreme activity on social networking sites is bad for you. It's counter-productive and unhealthy. Some employees have been fired--or received disciplinary action at least. Some friendships have been broken. Don't even let me get me started. I should know. I was a self-confessed Facebook addict  until I decided to take action. Now, I can go for days without logging in to Facebook or Twitter. There is no secret formula to fighting social network addiction. It all depends on your willpower. Let me share with you some rehab tips:

Deleting applications

Becoming app-aholic is a major symptom of addiction to social networking sites. Remove applications that require regular interaction, such as simulation games. As human beings are creatures of habit, it's easy to get caught in a trap. Pretty soon, you'll find yourself going online just to make sure that your scores won't fall even if there's nothing at stake. If deleting these apps seem to drastic for you, take it one step at a time. For instance, delete one game that you're most likely to check/play on a daily basis and leave apps that don't take up too much of your time. Later on, you'll realize that you don't really need all these apps, and removing them gets easier.

Limiting notifications

If seeing the red flag makes your heartbeat go fast, or if you find yourself clicking on "@yournamehere" every now and then, you know you've become addicted to feedback. Keep your notifications settings at a minimum, such as allowing alerts only for messages posted on your wall. If you leave your notification for photo comments "on," you'll find replying to comments hard to resist. And before long, you're logging in hours just browsing through friends' photos, caught in an endless comment exchange. Turn off alerts sent directly to your e-mail as well. This way, you won't be tempted to log in to the social networking site each time you check your mail at work.

Using alternative sites

Don't get me wrong. This isn't about replacing one bad habit with another. Try to find a site that allows you to post an update on all your social networks. Mine is Plurk, a microblogging site like Twitter, but with a more user-friendly interface. It works more like a personal journal, and you can count on it to be spam-free. Since it syncs my posts to my FB and Twitter accounts, I don't have to log in to these sites anymore. For this reason, I don't get to see feedback as often as I used to. After a while, I found that my "need" to reply to comments began to fade. 

If your addiction is really severe, you might want to consider Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. A word of caution, though: its actions, such as deleting all your contacts, will be permanent, leaving only a "cyberskeleton," or a blank profile. Why would you do this when you can simply deactivate your account, you ask? With FB, you can always re-activate your account without losing all your connections and previous inputs, so it's just like being invisible for a while. As for Suicide Machine, it's designed to kill your online social life, so this means that it will purge all your records and prohibit any future attempts to re-activate your accounts. It works the same for MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter. There's even going to be a cybermemorial held for you on the site.

As you can see, Suicide Machine should only be a last resort. After all, social network sites have their benefits too, such as increasing traffic to your blogs or reconnecting with long-lost friends. Stopping your addiction to online social networking doesn't have to mean becoming anti-social. It's about enjoying their service without letting them control you. Try these rehab tips and be free of your addiction. I did it; so can you. Good luck!