The first 1000 days of my #EyedentityGame

28 April 2020: I tweeted the first one of a new game for me on Twitter.

There was one correct guess.

What I did was take a close-up of the eyes of a celebrity. I used a public domain picture, because I planned to reveal the entire picture the next day, and I try to be careful about copyright.

I asked people to guess who it was.

26 January 2023: I tweeted the 1000th #EyedentityGame.

32 people got it right, which is above the average of 26. The highest? 171 for John Denver on 6 September 2022. Here is everybody who has gotten 100 or more so far:

That repeat number is because after I hit 500, I allowed repeats of the same person, although with the idea of using a different picture (some people look quite different in different pictures, especially if they are in my #50YearCareerClub). The number 2 there means it was the second time I used that celebrity. For example, the first time I used Leonard Nimoy, it was a picture of him as Spock; the second time it wasn’t.

I do feel like the number of correct guessers has grown, in part becauce the number of players (and viewers) has changed. I’ve now had individual games get more than 10,000 views on Twitter. Four times to date, celebrities have trended when they were the answer to the game:

• Bob Barker
• Burt Reynolds
• Mary Tyler Moore
• Mildred Natwick

When Bob Barker trended, I wasn’t sure it was because of my game (I’m sure Twitter doesn’t know why somebody trends every time, although they can see associations with hashtags, for example). Lots of people were understandably asking if he was ok when he was trending. I felt a bit bad about that, but I couldn’t answer without spoiling the game.

When Mildred Natwick trended, though, I was pretty confident it was the game. I didn’t see another reason why there would suddenly be a lot of interest in her (she died in 1994).

More important to me is the community of #EyedentityGame players. The community is fun and positive, which is how I like things in my life. I like to say my goal is to grow the joy (#GrowTheJoy), to make the world a more joyful place. I get feedback that suggests that’s the case with this: what more could I want?

Why did I start doing the game like this?

I don’t remember for sure, but I think I was motivated by concerns people had that wearing facemasks for infection control was going to be really socially isolating.

There are two things in particular in my background that made me think that concern was, perhaps, exagerrated.

First, I’ve been a professional actor. Actors know it’s the eyes that matter. If we all were wearing mirrored sunglasses, that would have created a lot more distance. I recall (I haven’t checked, this is just from memory) George C. Scott expressing concern when he was considering playing the Beast in a 1976 TV version of Beauty and the Beast, opposite Trish Van Devere. John Chambers was involved, although Del Acevedo is credited as having done Scott’s makeup. It was definitely heavy prosthetics, with a boar-like appearance.

Would people be able to see his performance?

What I remember is that Laurence Olivier informed him that if they could see his eyes, he’d be fine.

The second thing is that I’ve worked extensively with medical people (I trained them). They often wear the same sort of masks we’d be wearing. I’ve never had any trouble recognizing them.

I’ve also been a bit…intrigued when people think that others can’t tell they are smiling when they are wearing a lower face mask.

One of the things we learn as actors is what people’s natural body language is.

In a real, enthusiastic smile, the eyes are engaged. You wrinkle at the outer edges, the “crow’s feet”. Insincere smiles are just with the mouth. It’s sort of like “crying ugly”. Models may smile with their eyes wide open…most people tend to at least narrow them.

Another thing like that? People naturally gesture before they say the related words. We see the opposite with people who are uncomfortable on stage, just learning the craft. They say, “Look, over there,” and after that, point. While you can’t count on anything being universal, almost everybody would point first, then say the words.

But I digress.

My goal, then, was to make people less anxious.

Now, I should point this out: I would not be particuarly good at the game myself. I’m not a very visual person. I could get them from trivia (a particular strength of mine), but not just looking at most of them.

I do love things where other people are better at them than I am! It fascinates me.

I’m actually not very good at predicting which ones are going to do well. I try to pick ones where lots of people will get them…the more people who get them, the happier I am.

I’m disappointed in myself if I pick one that nobody gets…so far that has happened nine times, so that’s 99% that have been gotten: I’m satisfied with that, but hope to improve it over time.

While I haven’t analyzed it (another thing I really enjoy), these are some factors I think might affect it:

• If they aren’t looking at the camera, making “eye contact”, it’s harder. However, for whatever reason, that seems to have become less of the case since the first 500. Blurry also doesn’t seem to be an insurmountable barrier. I polled people on how they’d feel if I used AI (Artificial Intelligence) to sharpen the pictures, & the plurality was not to do it, so I haven’t
• I have guessers from different parts of the world. That’s why I give about 24 hours for people to guess, so that timezones aren’t disadvantaged. I think comedians & children’s TV performers & characters may be less universal. Comedians can be very dependent on language and dialect, so routines may not travel as well (this is different with comedians from the silent era, of course). Children’s programs are often educational, and again, that may not travel. If you are teaching kids how to spell or how to count, you are likely going to use the standard dialect for your country. You wouldn’t teach a child in the USA to say “zed” for 0, for example
• Musicians can have high recognition: I think we tend to see them looking the same for longer periods of time than actors
• Current celebrities can be harder than Golden Age. That makes some sense to me: Golden Age stars that we know are by definition stand-outs…if they weren’t, I wouldn’t find pictures of them. Also, I think our pop culture is far more fragmented than it was when, for example, there were three networks instead of three hundred outlets. That’s not exactly true, but gives you the idea

I also want to say that I love the creativity of some of the guesses (even when it makes it harder for me). Many people identify celebrities by their roles or even by their catchphrases. That’s fine, as long as I can tell who they mean. A few people write very clever mini-bios…I really enjoy those!

I’ve decided not to name any of the players in this piece: I really want to do that, but I couldn’t name them all and I’d be afraid of leaving someone out.

I made the decision to “tag” correct guessers when I reveal the answer. That really complicated the task! It can take more than an hour to try and identify them (Twitter doesn’t make it easy). I actually stopped doing a couple of features to have more time to review the correct guesses. I changed the way I quality check myself on that, which seems to have improved it…I hated when I accidentally omitted someone!

To each and every member of the #EyedentityGame community: thank you!

I’ve been thinking about how to give a few guidelines for new players (I’ve been getting a lot of new players…yay!) that experienced players know. I’ll say one key thing here, and that’s who it might be

• Most of them have been actors, but I’ve done musicians, scientists…even paintings. I want someone whose face would be well known. They are often nostalgic, but I’ve done current ones as well. One factor there is that I use public domain pictures, and those were more common in the past. For one thing, the rules for copyright have changed. When I see a contemporary celeb with a public domain picture, it’s often because it was taken by the government (perhaps they were visiting a military base)
• I don’t use people who are known primarily for being politicians or criminals. I want the game to be fun & not divisive. It won’t ever by Jeffrey Dahmer or Al Capone (they both get guessed fairly often). It won’t be a former US President or current Congressperson. Now, there’s a bit of fuzziness there. I have used Shirley Temple, even though she eventually got into politics. Many performers have criminal records of various kinds, & some criminals have performed. I’d suggest you think about the thing for which they are best known

Okay, I’m going to give you the dates, celebs, and correct guess count since the beginning. I’ve had people ask me if I track the percentage correct…I deliberately don’t track incorrect guesses: I like to look on the bright side. If I notice there were several guesses for another celebrity, I often put their picture up for comparison. That’s to show that the other guess was reasonable. By the way, it warms my heart when someone is guessed who has different inherent characteristics…it helps show that those divisions may not be as strong as some assume.

Here we go!

Thanks again to everybody who has played, and also to those who have just enjoyed seeing the game without guessing on Twitter! I totally understand why some might not be comfortable doing that. It could be fun to have it not seem like it’s a competition (it really isn’t for me…it’s cooperative). I have jokingly said to my Significant Other, “I can be less competitive than you can!” ;).

I hope #EyedentityGame brings you as much joy as it brings me! If not, I hope you find even more joy somewhere…and that you help other people find theirs!

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