‘People keep confusing me for Attitude’s Hot 100 winner!’
IT expert Marc Jason, 29, talks about being mistaken for Attitude’s Hot 100 winner, bobsledder Simon Dunn (The lucky geezer!)…
I think we’ve all been told that we look like someone else (when I was a child, I was the spitting image of my middle-aged father – go figure). “It’s the eyes/hair/beard!” they’ll say and you’ll nod and smile politely whilst disagreeing completely on the inside.
More recently, the person I keep being compared to most is Simon Dunn. Yes, a lookalike like that is a great compliment. Again, I think it’s all about the beard but, hey, I’m older than him and I had it first so I’m keeping it!
Social media is a funny thing; people are willing to say things to you that they’d never say in the street. Nobody has ever stopped me randomly while out in town and said ‘Hey, do you know who you look like?’ (or perhaps other less polite things) and that’s because those are the actions of a crazy person. On Twitter, though, this is all fair game and I love social media for that.
https://instagram.com/p/4eJnrqqRPg/
Every now and again I had friends tweet at me with a photo of Simon and say that at first they thought I’d suddenly taken up bobsledding. I have never bobsledded and the thought of it terrifies me.
This would crop up intermittently until I woke up one morning to a large number of notifications from Twitter. It turned out that Simon Dunn had won the Attitude Hot 100 and suddenly so many more people were aware of the resemblance. The attention I received in the days following this was bizarre. I was having so many people that I didn’t know on Twitter tweeting at me regarding this; asking if I knew who he was, if we were related, etc. Well, nobody’s ever seen us in the same room at the same time… but, alas, no, I just work in IT in Scotland and the fanciest ceremony I’ve been to was my university graduation which I followed up with a takeaway.
https://instagram.com/p/6pw6tIqROs/
Twitter has since calmed down, but I still get regular comments from people each week pointing out the similarity. I can certainly think of worse people to be compared to than an openly gay sportsman who is a beacon to young LGBT individuals who may have otherwise been put off pursuing a sporting career. As for me, who knows; maybe, if I play my cards right, I could at least one day be in my own version of I Wanna Marry “Harry”.
https://instagram.com/p/7JLetlKRHS/
This article first appeared in the current issue of aTEEN, Attitude’s digital mag just for young LGBT readers. You can download the issue for just £1.99 from Pocketmags.com/aTEEN.
