My Doppelganger on TV

It’s funny how you can get used to seeing yourself on TV. I was just six when I first saw, or noticed, my doppelganger. I was watching live coverage of some local event I don’t remember, when I saw a boy who looked just like me. I told my mom, and she chuckled but said that happens to everyone now and then.

From then on, I’d see him from time to time. As an extra on a kids’ show, in the crowd at a baseball game, in one of those interstitials where the local news station visits a local school and gives them a shout-out. Always when I was alone, never in photographs or recorded media, though I did once see him in footage from a rock concert in the 1980s that was being replayed on MTV. He aged with me, and often wore clothes that I had in my wardrobe.

I got used to it over time, and by the time I reached 6th grade I started to see him less and less frequently. All the way into my 20s, he appeared just enough to set me a little on edge, but infrequently enough that I could live comfortably with long periods of not thinking about him.

Now that I’m a celebrity, I’ve gotten very used to seeing myself on TV. I’m starting to get nervous because lately the paparazzi have been reporting more and more sightings of me in places where I haven’t been, and many people are claiming on the internet to have met me under circumstances I haven’t been in. I know the tabloids make stuff up about celebrities, and I know people sometimes lie about rubbing shoulders with their idols, but this feels different. My managers, agents, and publicists are all very excited about the buzz. At least they can sleep easy about it.

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