I used to go in disguise as a kind of art or pastime. In fact, I went to my high school graduation in disguise, as a “member of the community” – a beach bum type, with long hair (wig), short mustache, sunglasses. (I made the mustache with this technique.) Only one person recognized me, but I’d let him know beforehand that I would be there in disguise. I sat next to my math teacher in the general public seating, and made a few wise-ass comments during the ceremony, in a deepened voice. Then, at the end, I said, “Yeah–I coulda been in there, too, but what the hell. You had a great class, Ms. ____________),” in my normal voice, she looked at me, and just started cracking up.
On another instance, I went to a cafe where I knew some friends would be, disguised as a “foreign scholar” type, and sat a table next to and directly facing them, hearing everything they said. They never recognized me. However, some of the same friends did recognize me once going by in the same disguise later, and they said (after thinking about it for a while ), that it was because they recognized how I walked.
So that was a big lesson for me in disguises – it’s not just how you look, but your mannerism, too, that can give you away.
Also, it has everything to do with context. If you’re in disguise but in a context in which people never see you, they are much less likely to recognize. I lot of the ways in which we recognize people and objects is by way of the total context in which we have always known them. (ETA: IOW, kind of what DorkVader said about being out of uniform off base.)
I worked night security on campus while going to school. I would have interactions with people such as the cashiers at 7-11 but if I approached them when I wasn’t wearing a uniform they would often have a blank look.
French TV presenter Patrick Sébastien did just that in 1992, tricking several colleagues and famous people into believing that he was a particularly rude and/or clueless fan. Although he was already very famous at the time, had worked with some of them for years and was almost literally in their face, none recognized him.
I haven’t had a full head of hair since I was 22. And my beard I just shaved off last week. This person that I’m trying to fool has never seen me without it. I don’t know if I can disguise myself long enough to last several interactions over the course of a few weeks though.
As a sort of counterpoint to this story: my brother had a moustache since before he was married. A few years ago he decided to shave it off. His younger daughter, who was in her early teens, told her older sister, who was about 19 or 20, “Dad shaved off his moustache!”
I go to a Renaissance Faire yearly, on consecutive weekends. I know, and am good friends with, some of the folks there. Once, I met a person I only know from Faire in the real world. As he was dressed normally, with no hat and speaking normally, I could not recognize a person I’d known for 20 years.
Our office had a “disco” themed holiday party. A guy I’ve worked with for 15 years, who is normally bald, wore a greaser wig with sideburns. Could NOT recognize him at all.
So yes, it can be quite, quite easy to disguise yourself.
You want to fool someone about who you are for several weeks? Why? I don’t know the circumstances, of course, and perhaps they are entirely innocent, but offhand I gotta say I’d most likely be pretty pissed off at someone if they did that to me.
As to the feasibility of it, though - think Andy Kaufman/Tony Clifton. Of course the Tony character was quite over-the-top (and played by more than one person), but there were definitely people who worked with Tony having no idea it was Andy.
Speaking of facial hair, I knew a guy at work ages ago who had a beard and mustache. One day he shaved just the beard. He said the next day in his office one of the ladies kept staring at him, and finally said: “Oh, I get it. You grew a mustache.”
Going strictly by appearance, I think you could fool people. How I recognize people a lot, though, is by voice. Often, I’ve recognized an actor in a part by their voice…even though they were in heavy makeup or otherwise visually unrecognizable.
Going by just appearance alone, the problem with that is that people can remember faces. Atleast most can anyways. So if you really wanted to fool someone, you would have to alter your face in some way, there aren’t too many options available for changing your face besides surgery. There’s facial prosthetics such as foam latex noses, chins, etc. I don’t know how believable they are, especially at close range.
But, if you shaved your all your facial hair off, put some hair on your head, wore some eye color changing contacts, threw on some fake eyeglasses and maybe used a facial prosthetic. You might be able to get away with it, notwithstanding changing your voice and overall mannerism.
The person I want to pull this prank on has only ever seen me with a full on trimmed mustache/beard. Never clean shaven, and usually wearing a hat because I’m rather self conscious about my advanced balding…
This person that I’ve known for a few months likes to play practical jokes alot. Some of them are harsh. I really want to pull this off on him. He hasn’t seen me in two months so that might be to my advantage.
Seven or eight years ago, I shaved off my full beard and moustache, which I’d had for 20 years, just to see what I looked like without them these days. (I let them grow back after about a month.)
Some people still recognized me immediately, and some walked right on by without a clue that it was me. Different people clearly key in on different parts of one’s appearance.
How would you pull it off though, especially up close and during a conversation?
There’s alot of techniques online for changing your voice, or at the very least altering it to a degree. But I still think the biggest factor is facial appearance, if you can’t change that then nothing else really matters.
Exactly. I wonder what features people hone in on when recognizing someone.
I haven’t shaved in 54 years. If I shaved, added a hairpiece, and contacts, I suspect more than a few people I know would not recognize me. Especially people who last saw me when I weighed 80 pounds more (although that started changing 20 years ago).
I think my kids would be stunned, but I don’t think I could fool them.
I have plenty of experience recognizing people by the combinations of body shape, voice, the way they move, etc despite it being so dark I couldn’t see their face. It was called being in the Army. It’s nowhere near perfect but you’d be surprised how much you give away to someone who knows you even without them being able to see your face clearly.
