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Live from Echo Park Lake, the Peso Pluma lookalike contest
Peso Pluma lookalike winner with the crowd at Echo Park Lake.
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Brian de los Santos
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LAist
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The celebrity lookalike contest trend is having a moment this weekend in L.A. And I was especially excited about the edition centering around Mexican singer and rapper Peso Pluma.
As promised, I'm at Echo Park Lake — the northeast corner of Park Avenue and Echo Park Avenue, to be precise — to check out the gathering.
So it's real?
I got to the park on this lovely Sunday 30 minutes before its 11:00 a.m. kick off time. No Peso Plumas anywhere in sight... yet, but I did find the organizers right away.
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Ryan Kahn, Jean Fernandez, Daniela Salazar are organizers of the Peso Pluma lookalike contest at Echo Park Lake this Sunday.
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Brian de los Santos
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LAist
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Ryan Kahn, Jean Fernandez, Daniela Salazar are the minds behind this contest.
Salazar, who is 21 and lives in Altadena, says the inspiration came from a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest — which kicked off this global trend after attracting not just lookalikes, but the actor himself.
"We saw it, kind of got FOMO and said, 'Wait, we should and we can do this here," Salazar said.
Salazar and her co-organizers started to get the word out about the contest. It caught fire.
"When the first post went up, a lot of people were interested and our community really wanted it — and kind of needed this, I saw that a lot in the comments. Honestly, this is just a reminder to all of us that you are Peso enough and that we are community."
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Some 100 people showed up at the lake to enjoy the contest and the community.
One woman told me she wasn't sure if the contest was real, but showed up anyway.
The Peso Plumas
The Peso Pluma lookalikes.
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Brian de los Santos
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LAist
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The final contestants for the Peso Pluma lookalike contest at Echo Park on Sunday.
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Brian de los Santos
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LAist
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By 11:00 a.m., the lookalikes start to show up, looking kind of like Peso Pluma.
A couple more showed up minutes later, making for the final field of 6 contestants.
The winner
Oscar Reyes from Downey is the winner of the Peso Pluma lookalike contest in Echo Park.
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Brian de los Santos
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LAist
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Some 45 minutes later, where lookalikes are judged under 5 categories including their dancing skills and their Peso "Bella" impersonations — the winner is crowned.
Oscar Reyes from Downey is a huge fan of Peso Pluma. He said he just learned about the contest a couple days ago.
"I didn't think I would actually, like, win, but this is huge," Reyes told me. "He's like one of the greatest artists right now."
As advertised, Reyes gets the grand prize of a $50 gift card for King Taco, a fake gold chain — and a surprise Hija De Tu madre “guadalupana” jacket.
Just as I was leaving, I caught sight of someone who called himself "Cash," and says he's here to check out the Peso Pluma contest, which is just a couple hours from an event he is throwing at the lake.
The Shrek lookalike contest. Grand prize: $500.
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"It's Shrek and crazy," Cash said.
Cash is at Echo Park Lake to check out the Peso Pluma lookalike contest. In a couple hours, he'll start his own lookalike contest -- for Shrek.
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Brian de los Santos
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LAist
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But the game has changed: Congress voted to eliminate funding for public media across the country. Here at LAist that means a loss of $1.7 million in our budget every year. We want to assure you that despite growing threats to free press and free speech, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust. Speaking frankly, the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news in our community.
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