Two dozen Elizabeth Holmes impersonators in black turtlenecks and red lipstick faced off against a crop of Nathan Fielder lookalikes in Lafayette Park, drawing a few hundred spectators to Pacific Heights for an afternoon of staring contests, dance-offs and deadpan startup pitches. Sierra Stingl and Alex Kesin walked away with the titles, beating out dozens of rivals who leaned into the unmistakable look of Theranos's disgraced founder and the comedian behind one of the year's buzziest documentaries.
The contest, detailed by the San Francisco Chronicle, asked Holmes look-alikes to pitch fake startup ideas while Fielder look-alikes offered up equally deadpan marketing strategies to sell them. According to KRON4, the event drew over 1,000 RSVPs on Partiful, though that number reflects interest rather than a confirmed headcount at the park. The Chronicle reported organizers settled on Lafayette Park after seeing photos circulate from a similar contest in New York.
A Stanford Surgeon's Side Hustle as Elizabeth Holmes
Stingl, a 30-year-old plastic surgery resident at Stanford University, told the Chronicle that people had long told her she resembled Holmes, long before she ever considered entering a contest built around the comparison. She's no stranger to innovation herself: Stanford Medicine notes she is a resident in her professional development year at Stanford Plastic Surgery, where she developed a wearable free flap monitor that uses light to measure changes in heme concentration in soft tissue. The Chronicle reported she received Stanford funding to develop the device, a detail that adds an unexpected layer of irony given who she was playing for the afternoon — Holmes, the paper notes, is herself a Stanford dropout who left the university to start her blood-testing company, Theranos.
Stingl said she might celebrate her win by going out that night in her Holmes-inspired outfit, per the Chronicle's account. On the Fielder side of the bracket, 22-year-old Alex Kesin took first place in the Fielder competition. The San Francisco resident and college dropout hosts a podcast about the biotech industry, and he told the Chronicle his episodes on drug and biotech history tend to run very long — a fitting credential for a contest built around a documentary steeped in Theranos lore.
The Documentary Behind the Costume Craze
The whole spectacle traces back to “You Can See Everything,” the A24 documentary that premiered in October and follows Holmes in the weeks before she reported to prison for her fraud conviction. Nathan Fielder co-directed the film alongside Lance Oppenheim, with Fielder also appearing on screen, and the Chronicle reported Holmes and Fielder became two of the more popular Halloween costumes this year as a result. As reported by KRON4, the Lafayette Park gathering was inspired directly by the film and hosted by the social media account @threegirlsinsf, with organizer Tanvi Kaur telling the station she hoped to bring more creative and fun events to the community.
The Partiful listing for the event leaned into the bit, inviting contestants to be ready to perform authenticity and confuse people on their character, while promising spectators were welcome, even encouraged. The winner, the listing said, would get to wear a handmade crown along with all the bragging rights in the world. Judging covered a staring contest, a dance battle, and the dueling business pitches that gave the afternoon its strange, satirical edge, per KRON4's reporting. Think Jerky, an Austin, Texas-based company whose Sriracha Honey Turkey Jerky features prominently in the documentary, sponsored the San Francisco contest, according to the Chronicle.
New York Threw the First Lookalike Party
San Francisco wasn't the first city to stage this particular brand of absurdist theater. A similar contest unfolded at Washington Square Park in New York on October 25, where, according to amNY, dozens of costumed attendees gathered at the park's iconic arch around 1 p.m. Comedian Nicole Travolta and PR worker Joe Sivick won their respective Holmes and Fielder crowns that day, amNY reported, with co-organizer Maddie West saying the event was really just about getting people together to do something fun in person.
Business Insider reported that more than 200 people had responded to the New York event's registration form, and that the $50 cash prize went unclaimed — Sivick and Travolta opted instead for a purse made by a local business. The outlet also noted that TikTokers had already been posting about dressing up as Holmes and Fielder in the lead-up to Halloween, suggesting the Theranos-and-documentary mashup had legs well beyond either city's park bench crowd.
