Doppelganger

1. The Doppelganger Experience Reveals a Deeper Cultural Malaise

In the end, looking at her helped me see myself more clearly, but it also, oddly, helped me better see the dangerous systems and dynamics we are all trapped inside.

Personal and Political Entanglement. The author's chronic confusion with her doppelganger, Naomi Wolf, becomes a lens through which to examine broader societal issues. This personal predicament mirrors the larger cultural anxieties about identity, truth, and the forces destabilizing our world. The doppelganger experience serves as a guide to understanding the complexities of our "doppelganger culture."

Uncanny and Unsettling. The presence of a double walking around is profoundly unsettling, creating a sense of uncanniness. This feeling is particularly acute when the double undergoes a dramatic political transformation, making the original question their own identity. The author grapples with the blurring lines between herself and her doppelganger, leading to an existential crisis.

Warping Reality. The author's experience reflects a broader sense that reality is somehow warping. Many people report losing loved ones "down the rabbit hole" of conspiracy theories and misinformation. The forces destabilizing the author's world are part of a larger web destabilizing our larger world.

2. Identity Confusion Highlights the Precariousness of Self in the Digital Age

Am I who I think I am, or am I who others perceive me to be?

Losing Control. The author's identity is repeatedly confused with that of her doppelganger, leading to a loss of control over her own image and reputation. This highlights the precariousness of identity in the digital age, where carefully constructed selves can be undone by a hacked account or a deep fake. The author's experience taps into the painful truth that our personal lives and public personas are vulnerable to forces outside our control.

Digital Avatars. The confusion between the author and her doppelganger is exacerbated by the flattening and blurring effects of social media platforms. Digital avatars offer approximated versions of our physical selves, further blurring the lines between reality and representation. The author's public self shrinks down to a thumbnail-sized photo and Twitter's 280-character limit, making it easier for others to conflate her with her doppelganger.

Machine Learning. The algorithms of social media platforms contribute to the confusion by prompting it and helpfully filling in the mistake for its users. This is how machine learning works—the algorithm imitates, learning from patterns. The author's name starts being suggested instead of her doppelganger's, leading to even more mix-ups.

3. Conspiracy Theories Thrive on Unaddressed Fears and Societal Fractures

Those fears distract people from judging the accuracy of the content they may read online.

Fear and Anxiety. Conspiracy theories find a ready audience with a public in a state of generalized fear of getting seriously ill and possibly dying, and simultaneously has very real worries about what public health measures like stay-at-home orders, school closures, and masking would mean for their livelihoods and loved ones. These fears distract people from judging the accuracy of the content they may read online. The author's doppelganger exploits these fears by promoting misinformation about Covid-19.

Lack of Trust. The spread of conspiracy theories is fueled by a lack of trust in official sources and institutions. People who feel that their concerns are not being addressed by mainstream media or political leaders are more likely to turn to alternative narratives. The author's doppelganger capitalizes on this distrust by presenting herself as a truth-teller who is willing to challenge the official narrative.

Social Media Echo Chambers. Social media platforms amplify the spread of conspiracy theories by creating echo chambers where people are primarily exposed to information that confirms their existing beliefs. This makes it difficult for people to encounter alternative perspectives or to critically evaluate the claims being made. The author's doppelganger uses social media to cultivate a loyal following and to disseminate her misinformation to a wide audience.

4. The Allure of the Mirror World Lies in Its Rejection of Elite Power Structures

I felt like she had taken my ideas, fed them into a bonkers blender, and then shared the thought-puree with Carlson, who nodded vehemently.

Distorted Reflections. The author's doppelganger takes her ideas about corporate power and distorts them into conspiracy theories. This creates a mirror world where the same issues are being discussed, but with radically different interpretations and conclusions. The author's doppelganger presents herself as a champion of the people who is fighting against elite power structures.

Exploiting Legitimate Concerns. The author's doppelganger taps into legitimate fears about digital surveillance and the erosion of privacy. She presents vaccine passports as a tool of mass surveillance and control, resonating with people who are already concerned about the power of Big Tech. The author's doppelganger provides people with a focal point for their fear and outrage over digital surveillance.

Offering a Plan of Action. The author's doppelganger offers her followers a plan of action, even if it is based on misinformation. She encourages them to resist mask mandates, vaccine passports, and other public health measures. The author's doppelganger gives her followers something to do, a sense of agency in the face of overwhelming forces.

5. Personal Branding and the Performance of Self Contribute to a Culture of Doubling

Self-branding is yet another form of doubling, an internal sort of doppelganging.

Commodification of Self. The pressure to create a consumable, public-facing identity leads to a partitioning between the private sense of self and the imperative to create a marketable persona. This process requires individuals to label difficult experiences in specifically marketable ways, turning them into something fixed, salable, and potentially profitable. The author's students describe the process as "packaging up your trauma into a consumable commodity."

Digital Doubles. The carefully constructed self can be undone in any number of ways and in an instant—by a disabling accident, by a psychotic break, or, these days, by a hacked account or a deep fake. The author's students grow up with an acute consciousness of having an externalized double—a digital double, an idealized identity that is partitioned from their "real" selves and that serves as a role they must perform for the benefit of others if they are to succeed. The author's students must project the unwanted and dangerous parts of themselves onto others.

Alienation. The commodification of the self requires a partitioning, an internal doubling that is inherently alienating. There is you, and then there is Brand You. As much as we might like to believe that these selves can be kept separate, brands are hungry, demanding things, and one self necessarily impacts the other.

6. The Fascist Double Threatens to Engulf Liberal Democracies

As my investigation has worn on, this is the form of doppelganger that increasingly preoccupies me: the fascist clown state that is the ever-present twin of liberal Western democracies, perpetually threatening to engulf us in its fires of selective belonging and ferocious despising.

Shadow Versions. The figure of the doppelganger has been used for centuries to warn us of these shadow versions of our collective selves, of these monstrous possible futures. The author feels and fears a decisive flip from democratic to authoritarian, secular to theocratic, and pluralist to fascistic. In some places, the flip has already taken place.

Selective Belonging. The fascist clown state is the ever-present twin of liberal Western democracies, perpetually threatening to engulf us in its fires of selective belonging and ferocious despising. The author is increasingly preoccupied with this form of doppelganger. The figure of the doppelganger has been used for centuries to warn us of these shadow versions of our collective selves, of these monstrous possible futures.

Warped Reflection. The pandemic, layered on top of so many other long-repressed emergencies, has taken humanity somewhere we have not been before, somewhere close but different. That difference is what accounts for the strangeness so many of us have been trying to name—everything so familiar, and yet more than a little off.

7. Reclaiming Language and Building Solidarity Are Essential to Countering Disinformation

I have come to accept, however, that while these distinctions matter to me, and no doubt to her, most people couldn’t care less.

Distorted Concepts. The author's doppelganger and her fellow travelers have spent years mangling the meaning of the fight against authoritarianism, fascism, and genocide. This is happening at a time when we are in dire need of a robust anti-fascist alliance. The author feels that it is important to reclaim the meaning of these terms.

Democratic Media. The author feels that we have outsourced the management of our critical informational pathways to algorithms run by for-profit companies, working hand in glove with governments. The solution to this informational crisis is not to look to tech oligarchs to disappear people we don’t like; it’s to get serious about demanding an information commons that can be counted upon as a basic civic right.

Building Alliances. The author feels that the kind of mass movement needed to challenge the power of tech oligarchs does not yet exist. She feels that it is important to build alliances with people who are not already in our movements. The author feels that we must not be afraid to reach across the aisle and engage in dialogue with people who hold different views.

8. The Pandemic Amplified Existing Social and Political Divides

Covid had canceled so many of the things that had, for years, told me who I was in the world.

Exacerbated Isolation. The pandemic forced many people into prolonged stress and isolation, making them more vulnerable to states of shock. The author's own isolation grew more extreme when she returned to Canada. The months and months without humans in bodies to feel and think with pushed her to the edge.

Digital Dependence. The author's isolation led her to spend more time online, seeking simulation of the friendships and communities she missed. Instead, she found The Confusion: a torrent of people discussing her and what she’d said and what she’d done—only it wasn’t her. The world was disappearing, and so was she.

Blurred Boundaries. The barriers between the author and her doppelganger got blurred as well. Her public self had shrunk down to that thumbnail-sized photo and Twitter’s 280-character limit, and now, thanks to her, she didn’t even have that. She felt like shrunken Alice telling the Caterpillar, “I’m not myself, you see … being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”

9. The Seduction of Victimhood and the Erosion of Shared Reality

In their telling, it was actually vaccinated people who were the selfish ones sacrificing the vulnerable, and who were the spreaders and shedders.

Turning the Tables. The author's doppelganger and her fellow travelers had taken the argument for vaccines—which is that we belong to communities of enmeshed bodies, so what we do and don’t do to our bodies affects the health of other bodies, especially vulnerable bodies—and flipped it on its head. In their telling, it was actually vaccinated people who were the selfish ones sacrificing the vulnerable, and who were the spreaders and shedders. The author feels that this considerably upped the ante on her getting confused with her doppelganger.

Projection and Absolution. The appeal of the shedding theory is laid bare as the ultimate tool of projection and absolution. The author's doppelganger and her fellow travelers had taken the argument for vaccines—which is that we belong to communities of enmeshed bodies, so what we do and don’t do to our bodies affects the health of other bodies, especially vulnerable bodies—and flipped it on its head.

Erosion of Trust. The author feels that the confusion was now so frequent that Twitter’s algorithm was prompting it, helpfully filling in the mistake for its users, to save them precious time. This is how machine learning works—the algorithm imitates, learning from patterns. The author feels that this is what happens when we allow so many of our previously private actions to be enclosed by corporate tech platforms.

10. The Path to Integration Requires Confronting Uncomfortable Truths and Embracing Collective Action

Are we there yet? Not all of us, at least not quite yet. But the pandemic, layered on top of so many other long-repressed emergencies, has taken humanity somewhere we have not been before, somewhere close but different.

Finding Bearings. The author feels that it’s past time to find our bearings in this new place. In his novel The Double, José Saramago includes an epigraph: “Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.” The author feels that it is important to decipher the chaos of doppelganger culture, with its maze of simulated selves and digital avatars and mass surveillance and racial and ethnic projections and fascist doubles and the studiously denied shadows that are all coming to the surface at once.

Collective Power. The point of this mapping is not to stay trapped inside the house of mirrors, but to do what I sense many of us long to do: escape its mind-bending confines and find our way toward some kind of collective power and purpose. The point is to make our way out of this collective vertigo, and get somewhere distinctly better, together.

Deciphering Chaos. The author feels that it’s going to take some wild turns—but rest assured that the point of this mapping is not to stay trapped inside the house of mirrors, but to do what I sense many of us long to do: escape its mind-bending confines and find our way toward some kind of collective power and purpose. The point is to make our way out of this collective vertigo, and get somewhere distinctly better, together.

Last updated: April 17, 2025