Technology: Now We Know The Truth About Who We Look Like

Well, just as soon as I got through denouncing millions of my fellow Americans for being shallow and celebrity-obsessed, the top story on the Internet turned out to be the incredible popularity of the new “Celebrity Look-Alike” Facial Recognition software at the myheritage.com website.

Now I’m not going to give you the website listing quite yet. I know how you people are and I know that you’ll all go charging off to that website as soon as I give you its address, so you can see “what celebrities you most resemble.” Giving you the website right away would indulge your vanity, and that is not what we are all about here at the Stillwater Tribune.

So instead we will begin with a presentation about what celebrities I most resemble. To obtain this information, I uploaded a snapshot of myself to the website. In the interest of accuracy and fairness, I did not submit any “glam” shots of myself; no special effects, no touching up. I just used my regular file photo; the same picture of me that accompanies this blog and appeared with my weekly newspaper column for two years. Here is that photo:

Using state-of-the-art computer technology, this digital image was processed and points of facial similarity with celebrities were objectively identified. The results—the names and photographs of celebs I most resemble--are inarguably scientific and not subject to human errors of prejudice or judgment. So I do not want to hear howls of derision; this list of Bill Prendergast celebrity look-alikes was compiled by a state-of-the-art computer; not by yours truly.

Here is the first celebrity that the computer identified as most resembling me:

Yes, that’s right; it’s Angelina Jolie. Now some of you may find that shocking. I know I did. If you are a regular reader here, you know that I have a little “thing” for Angelina. In fact I consider her to be the most beautiful woman in the world, except for my wife. It gave me a warm feeling to finally receive scientific confirmation of the fact that Angelina and I are “facially linked.”

But it’s not all good news. Take a look at this geezer, whom the computers also identified as a Bill Prendergast look-alike.

This is Karl Jaspers, philosopher and theologian. Eeyew! He may have been a bright boy, but he's no Angelina Jolie. (Don’t feel bad if you didn’t recognize Jaspers straight off the bat; I didn’t either and I’m unusually well read for an American.) I don’t see the resemblance here the way I did with Angelina, but I defer to the findings of our scientific research community.

Next we have:

Now that's more like it. Yul Brynner. I was pleased with this result—Brynner was a powerful, masculine presence and I like to think I give off the same sort of aura. But why is he wearing Ava Gardner’s wig in this photo? I have never worn my hair like that.

Finally, the last of our “the computer says this celebrity looks like Bill Prendergast” look-alikes:

That’s right, it’s thirties blonde bombshell Jean Harlow. No surprises here; I get that a lot when I’m shopping down at the supermarket—“Excuse me, sir, but has anyone ever told you that you look like...” “Yeah, I know, Jean Harlow, Jean Harlow, I get that all the time. Excuse me please, I’m trying to shop here.” Frankly I’m sick of it, and I don’t need a computer to tell me the same thing.

And I also look like Kate Moss, according to the computer, but her picture was too skinny to post here. Now I’m off to run fundamentalist congressional candidate Michele Bachmann’s photo through the same machine. The website, by the way,is:
http://myheritage.com/FP/Company/tryFaceRecognition.php