Last week, news spread around the world: supposedly scientists from Princeton University showed what Adam could have looked like. “First Man” turned out to be incredibly similar to the star of the “Fast and Furious” film franchise. We checked whether such a study was actually conducted.

On October 28, 2022, messages appeared in Russian-language social networks and media: “Scientists from Princeton University have created a 3D model of what Adam, the first man created by God, could have looked like.” Numerous Internet publications with this news are accompanied by the same computer image of a bald man. In many entries, the authors also humorously note that Adam is very reminiscent of Hollywood actor Vin Diesel.

Thus, on VKontakte, public posts went viral “Rhymes and punches"(1.3 million views, 50,000 likes and 15,000 reposts), "Borsch"(584,000, 6700 and 7000), "Say 13 – Music 2022" (125,000, 1000 and 600) and "Marvel Universe | DC"(163,000, 500 and 400), there are records in other relatively large communities (examples here, here And here). Such posts also received tens of thousands of views on Telegram, for example in the channels “Badcore" And "KD 18+ [Politics] Kherson" There are publications with supposedly Adam on Pikabu (here And here) And "I cried"

The media approached the dissemination of this news a little more carefully than in social networks and instant messengers. Despite the affirmative headlines, the texts themselves generally note that there is no evidence that such a project was undertaken at the university. Among such resources "Gazeta.ru" (“A 3D model of Adam created by God was published on the Internet. He turned out to look like Vin Diesel”), Vesti.az, (“Adam “created” by God was very similar to Vin Diesel”) and “7days.ru"("Eve can be understood: scientists have recreated the appearance of the seduced Adam").

How wrote In some media, the primary source of news about scientists’ visualization of a biblical character is a tweet from a chain of American cinemas, where the image was allegedly first published. Indeed, on October 27, 2022, on the Alamo Drafthouse NYC Twitter account appeared post with the same picture and the following caption: “Scientists from Princeton University have reconstructed a 3D model of what Adam, the first man created by God, might have looked like.” We could not find any earlier reports about this supposed result of the scientists' research. In addition, the next day, October 28, in the same account appeared comment hinting at the humorous nature of the original publication: "Just a reminder that we are a cinema, not an academic journal." They also responded on the official page of Princeton University: “Researcher Dom Toretto (Diesel’s character from the movie “The Fast and the Furious.” — Ed.) thanks his family for the remarkable discovery.”

Although the joke first appeared at Alamo Drafthouse NYC, the image itself was originally published elsewhere. In fact, this is not a 3D model of Adam, but, in fact, an image of Vin Diesel. This picture was created by a 3D artist Vitaly Tenishev from St. Petersburg posted six years ago, on November 28, 2016, in his account on the ArtStation website. The work is signed as follows: “Riddick (Vin Diesel) fan art.” Richard B. Riddick is one of Diesel's most famous characters. appeared in film series, video games and cartoons. His debut took place in the sci-fi action film "Black hole» 2000.

There are other pictures on the artist’s page where you can see the 3D model of Riddick from other angles, and also see the hero in his famous glasses.

Photo: 3D drawings by Vitaly Tenishev. Source

Judging by the author's Twitter, he knows that his work was used in a viral post (as of this writing, the tweet about Adam has almost 310,000 likes and 29,000 retweets). October 28 Tenishev commented his meme of Leonardo DiCaprio from the movie “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” with the words: “That feeling when your work is in an “academic magazine”.”

Apparently, the joke about Adam and Vin Diesel appeared as part of a new flash mob, when users posted 3D models of famous personalities and signed that these were reconstructions of the appearance of biblical characters. So, supposedly scientists from Stanford University turned Lady Gaga to Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, and French wrestler and actor Andre the Giant (to the original its computer model is at least three years old) became Joseph, Mary's husband. However, back in 2018 Lady Gaga in the same image called Queen Cleopatra. And in the official account of the film “Twilight” jokedthat Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) are Adam and Eve.