Juggalo Makeup Blocks Facial Recognition Technology

Last year, Ticketmaster and LiveNation invested in a former military facial recognition company, with the hope that the technology could be used to both strengthen and speed up event entry. If that prospect thoroughly creeps you out, here’s a simple life-hack to defeat Big Brother: become a Juggalo. In a revelation that is sure to freak out the FBI, Insane Clown Posse’s passionate fan base have unintentionally unlocked the secret to thwarting facial recognition.

It turns out that Juggalos face makeup cannot be accurately read by many facial recognition technologies. Most common programs identify areas of contrast — like those around the eyes, nose, and chin — and then compare those points to images within a database. The black bands frequently used in Juggalo makeup obscure the mouth and cover the chin, totally redefining a person’s key features.

As Twitter use @tahkion points out (via Yahoo!), the black-on-white face paint tricks most facial recognition into incorrectly reading a person’s jawline and, presumably, eye area. They broke down the basic results in a pair of tweets:

i made a breakthrough. it turns out juggalo makeup defeats facial recognition successfully. if you want to avoid surveillance, become a juggalo i guess pic.twitter.com/kEh7fUQeXq

— tahkion (@tahkion) July 1, 2018

for anyone wondering why some face changes evade facial recognition and others don't, here's a visualization of how landmarks are placed on a few examples. juggalo makeup is particularly effective as it basically totally redefines what is interpreted as the jawline pic.twitter.com/dFSx5FEGc9

— tahkion (@tahkion) July 1, 2018

Unfortunately, the Faygo-loving clan are not totally safe from all facial recognition technology. While most common software uses areas of light contrast to register identifying features, Apple’s Face ID instead uses depth perception. Since makeup only changes the apparent shape of your chin and not the depth of your dimples, Apple’s facial recognition renders the Juggalo makeup workaround useless. But at least you’ll be able to sneak past LiveNation’s facial scanning.