Anyone who knows Robert Pattinson knows the man is a gremlin who would never post videos of himself singing on TikTok because he belongs in a Victorian basement with only candlelight. But despite this, a creepy deepfake TikTok account managed to convince thousands of people he had joined the app.
Picture this: you’re scrolling through TikTok and you come across a new account with the handle @iam_pattinson. It’s already gaining thousands of followers after it posted a video of R-Pattz waving to Adele‘s “Hello”.
Like I said, our dear Rob is too much of a freak to ever do anything so normal but many on TikTok were cautiously optimistic that he really did make a new account.
@must.be.megan #duet with @iam_pattinson it’s the fluorescents #robertpattinson #iloveyou
Reactions to the account’s TikTok were mixed. While some claimed it was definitely Robert Pattinson, others argued it was an obvious deepfake.
FYI, a deepfake is a picture or video or sometimes even an audio that is put together using high-tech software so that it looks authentic, usually by pasting a celeb’s face onto an actor’s body. Grossly, it’s often used to make realistic porn of celebrities who haven’t consented to their image image being used that way, but there’s all kinds of uncanny fake footage of celebs out there.
@theonlysoupman #stitch with @iam_pattinson and the captions on the vids are off?? Like something’s up with the syntax… also the tag “robertpattinsonedit”
@planetmaurz420 #duet with @iam_pattinson that ain’t robert pattinson that’s berton patterson from wyoming
There are some obvious tells when it comes to deepfakes.
With this account, users pointed out that “Robert” rarely blinked, his mouth-movements didn’t match his lip-syncs and his forehead was too big. Often with deepfakes, the movements are slightly off — you might not always be able to tell what it is exactly, but there’s something.
Now the account has disappeared, seemingly confirming claims that it was fake.
But it’s still left TikTok users creeped out because of how passable the deepfake was — @iam_pattinson had at least 660,000 followers on the platform before it mysteriously disappeared.
Robert Pattinson himself hasn’t commented, probably due to the fact he isn’t on any social media at all. But I don’t need him to tell me the jawline in those TikToks was not his.
