Girls That Look Like Skrillex
Also known as: GTLLS
Girls That Look Like Skrillex is a single-topic Tumblr blog launched on April 2nd, 2011, that collects photographs of women sporting the same shaved-side hairstyle as electronic music producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore)1. The blog rode the wave of celebrity lookalike Tumblrs that started with "Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber" and quickly caught the attention of Skrillex himself, music publications, and forums across the internet5. At its peak, the blog became a go-to reference for how deeply Skrillex's signature look had penetrated festival and scene fashion culture.
Overview
Girls That Look Like Skrillex (often abbreviated GTLLS) is a Tumblr blog that curates user-submitted photos of women who, intentionally or not, bear a strong resemblance to electronic music producer Skrillex5. The defining visual element is the undercut or undershave hairstyle where one side of the head is buzzed short while the rest of the hair hangs long. Big glasses, particularly stolen 3D movie theater glasses, are bonus points3.
The blog reads like "flipping through a yearbook full of photos of just one person," as Phoenix New Times put it2. Some posts feature straight-up doppelgängers, while others include meme-style image edits and humorous commentary2. The appeal is simple: Skrillex's look is so specific and so widely copied that an entire blog's worth of lookalikes was never hard to fill.
The Tumblr blog "Girls That Look Like Skrillex" went live on April 2nd, 20111. The very first post was a call for submissions, asking viewers to send in pictures of women they knew who looked like Skrillex1. That same day, four photos of women with one side of their head shaved were published, establishing the blog's format immediately5.
The concept wasn't entirely new. The trend of opposite-gender celebrity lookalike blogs started over a year earlier with "Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber," which launched on March 2nd, 20105. That blog mocked Justin Bieber's androgynous appearance by collecting photos of women with similar side-swept hairstyles, and by June 2012 it had racked up 1,794 posts5. GTLLS applied the same formula to Skrillex's EDM-era aesthetic.
Skrillex (real name Sonny Moore) had made a dramatic style shift between his time as the lead singer of post-hardcore band From First to Last and his solo electronic career. In his FFTL days, he was a poster boy for the MySpace "scene" look: flat-ironed rainbow hair, raccoon eyeliner, facial piercings3. When he reemerged as Skrillex around 2010, he kept the long hair on one side but shaved the other clean, creating a look that became inseparable from the dubstep boom3.
Origin & Background
How It Spread
How to Use This Meme
The blog format is straightforward:
Find or take a photo of a woman whose hairstyle resembles Skrillex's signature undershave (one side buzzed, the other side long).
Submit the photo to the Tumblr blog (when it was active).
Oversized glasses, 3D movie glasses, or rave accessories increase the resemblance factor.
Cultural Impact
Fun Facts
Skrillex personally endorsed the blog by tweeting a link to it just two days after it launched.
Vice writer Shriya Samavai didn't realize she looked like Skrillex for over a year after shaving her head. She found out when a college acquaintance in New York asked if she'd heard of the blog.
The blog title uses the abbreviation GTLLS in fan communities.
Phoenix New Times called the blog "a gem" while also noting they were annoyed at how much attention they'd been giving Skrillex.
Some people in the LA Weekly feature were so convincing as Skrillex lookalikes that strangers would ask them for photos, thinking they were actually the DJ.
Derivatives & Variations
"Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber"
— The spiritual predecessor, launched March 2010, which established the celebrity lookalike Tumblr format. It accumulated 1,794 posts by mid-2012[5].
"Cooking With Skrillex"
— A related Tumblr blog discussed alongside GTLLS in Noisey's 2012 video feature[5].
"You Got Skrillex Hair"
— A November 2011 YouTube music video by ElectricValentineVid with lyrics mocking the undershave trend[5].
LA Weekly's "Top Five" lists
— Two separate LA Weekly articles ranking the best Skrillex lookalikes, drawing from the blog's submissions[4][5].
Frequently Asked Questions
References (7)
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4Girls That Look Like Skrillex - Know Your Memeencyclopedia
- 5Charli XCXencyclopedia
- 6
- 7Music :article