In this way, confrontations with our doppelgangers inevitably raise existentially destabilizing questions. Am I who I think I am, or am I who others perceive me to be? And if enough others start seeing someone else as me, who am I, then? Doppelgangers are not the only way we can lose control over ourselves, of course. The carefully constructed self can be undone in any number of ways and in an instant—by a disabling accident, by a psychotic break, or, these days, by a hacked account or a deep fake. This is the perennial appeal of doppelgangers in novels and films: the idea that two strangers can be indistinguishable from each other taps into the precariousness at the core of identity—the painful truth that, no matter how deliberately we tend to our personal lives and public personas, the person we think we are is fundamentally vulnerable to forces outside of our control.

XREF: Connects to themes of identity, self-construction, and the destabilizing effect of doppelgangers in literature and film, as well as modern digital threats like deep fakes.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 79