robotnik2004: (Default)
robotnik2004 ([personal profile] robotnik2004) wrote2006-08-17 03:00 pm

This Is What The Internet Was Built For (OR, Tim Berners-Lee, Thou Art Avenged)

Q: What do these ten people have in common? (Hover the mouse over their pictures if you don't know who they are.)

MTV VJ Carson Daly Italian hunk Raoul Bova Barry "Greg Brady" Williams Kevin "Not Gay" Spacey Ibrahim "I Have No Idea Who This Is" Tatlises Dean "Superman" Cain Dermot "Not Gay" Mulroney Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute Director Frank Capra Guy "I Have No Idea Who This Is" Pines

If you solve that one, try this: What do these six people have in common? (Again, make with the mouse if you don't recognize 'em.)

Aussie songstress Natalie Imbruglia Nerd crush Alyson Hannigan Non-Olsen-Twin Full House moppet Jodie Sweetin Nationalist warlord Chiang Kai-shek Non-threatening Korean heartthrob Won Bin J-pop Starlet Takako Matsu

A shiny red Huffy Desperado (with banana seat) to the first correct answer.

(Comments screened for now so you can have the fun of being puzzled / feeling smug for a little while.)

Wow, that was quick! [livejournal.com profile] xorphus, who I don't even really know, really, got it in about three seconds, and the rest of you who had seen the meme weren't far behind. I underestimated my F-list, or at least the speed of meme-travel.

A: Yes, those ten big-shiny-chinned guys are all "Celebrities Who Kinda Sorta Look Like Me," according to MyHeritage.com, which is not the white supremacist hate group its name implies, but rather a clever photo meme. You plug in a photograph of yourself, it does a goofy little scanning animation that looks like something the Bat Computer might have done in a hypothetical Batman flick from 1983, and presto! Ten celebrities that kinda sorta look like you. (My ten guys appear above in order, so I'm like 80% Carson Daly and only 49% whatsisface on the end there.) As I just said in a comment to [livejournal.com profile] xorphus, it's like the archetypal LJ meme: fun, pointless, narcissistic (because most, though not all celebrities, are easier on the eyes than us schlubs), and both self- and celebrity-obsessed.

And, as you've probably guessed by now, the six smiling faces in the bottom row are "Celebrities Who Kinda Sorta Look Like [livejournal.com profile] papersource." Hers seems a bit more random than mine (ie, Chiang Kai-Shek?!?) (and doesn't Chiang sorta look like Jean-Luc Picard in that picture?). I don't know if MyHeritage needs more semi-Asian cuties in its database, or if I just confoozled it by giving a sort of three-quarters photo rather than a dead on view. But hey, Natalie + Willow, that sounds about right to me.

The final riddle is, of course: How did this dude...

Ibrahim "I Have No Idea Who This Is" Tatlises + Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute + Director Frank Capra

...end up with this girl?

Aussie songstress Natalie Imbruglia + Nerd crush Alyson Hannigan + J-pop Starlet Takako Matsu

It must be my mastery of the Pan flute.

(Also, why do I now find myself weirdly attracted to Chiang Kai-Shek?)