Owen Summers (11) walks down the halls of Sparta as passersby approach him thinking that they’ve caught Dylan Nixon (12), a fellow spartan who resembles Summers heavily.
This is not the first time Summers and Nixon have been confused for one another – and amongst their peers, they’ve been titled doppelgängers . Sometimes, the two are mistaken for family members as well.
“I was walking to the bathroom the other day and this guy stopped me and he asked me if I was related to [Summers],” Nixon said. “And I was like, ‘No, but people say that all the time.”
The striking similarities between Nixon and Summers hail heavily from their matching interests. The look-alikes are both invested in the worlds of fashion and music, reigning in the same subgenres of each. However, while Summers spends his time skateboarding, Nixon prefers to rock climb.
“I got into [fashion] from skateboarding and then overtime it just kinda, your personal fashion turns into a bigger thing,” Summers said. “It starts mixing with your interests … I thrift all my clothes, DePop, whenever I see something cool I feel like I gotta get it.”
While Nixon and Summers listen to similar music artists and wear the same baggy clothes influenced by the early 2000s style, their active hobbies differ. Summers listens to music just to enjoy it, but Nixon dabbles in music production. He has been playing piano since he was in the third grade and is motivated to compose his own songs.
“I been trying to get into making music with a piano and a keyboard and stuff like that, and I play videogames,” Nixon said. “I can’t skate though ‘cause I can’t balance. I always fall off the skateboard, even just trying to ride in like a straight line.”
Nixon is not the only one in his immediate group of friends who has a doppelganger. Colman Agranov (12) is sometimes confused for Dakota Carter (12), who is just a bit shorter than Agranov but has the same curly blond hair, glasses and facial hair. While Agranov tags alongside Nixon on trips to Memphis Rox, Carter can be found at Highpoint Climbing instead.
“So I’ve never met [Carter] but I’ve been told many times that this kid in computer science looks like me,” Agranov said. “I don’t know his name or what he looks like but apparently he looks like me … the only thing I know about him [is that he takes computer science] and I recently learned that he rock climbs.”
While Nixon and Summers pay close attention to their fashion style, both Agranov and Carter are indifferent to being fashionable. Agranov and Carter both wear baggier clothes and dress for comfort.
“There’s not really anyone that I really look up to in fashion,” Carter said. “I kind of just dress how I want to. I prefer loose clothing … I can’t do kind of tight clothing, it just is uncomfortable, I typically do loose clothing – sweaters, hoodies jackets,.You’ll almost never see me without a hoodie on and I go rock climbing pretty regularly so it also kind of coincides with that as well.”
Carter spends weekends exercising or riding his bike on a warm day, while Agranov spends time working on personal music projects. However, both will squeeze in the time to play videogames with friends,
“I like to play guitar … and write music,” Agranov said. “I produce on my laptop, I work on audio engineering stuff, I play videogames with my friends.”
Both pairs of doppelgangers dress just like the other. Both pairs spend their time invested in hobbies like building a fashion sense, going rock climbing or playing video games. But how are they different? Carter has no interest in music while Agranov practices on his guitar regularly. Nixon doesn’t know how to ride a skateboard, but for Summers, that’s exactly what got him into fashion – an interest of his that aligns with that of Nixon’s. In many ways, the look-alikes all have raging similarities and differences from their counterparts.
“[Nixon and I are] definitely pretty similar and I feel like if you dress a certain way, you definitely have some personality things about you that are gonna be the same as someone else who dresses like you,” Summers said.