What Are Mimics?

To learn all about mimics, listen to episode #53 wherever you listen to podcasts.

What Are Mimics? The Paranormal Creature Invented by The Internet

I'd never heard of mimics until a few years ago. And when I tried to research them, something was off; not in a scary way, more like: something's going on here, and I don't think I'm getting the full story. So I went down a very deep rabbit hole. What I found is that mimics are terrifying, weirdly ancient, and also, completely made up by a stranger on the internet sometime in the early 2020s. Like Slenderman, the Rake, Not Deer, and my social life, the mimic would be nothing without Al Gore's internet.

Here we go.

What is a mimic, exactly?

A mimic is some kind of possibly invisible (possibly not invisible) supernatural creature or entity that mimics the voices of someone you trust, ostensibly under the guise of luring you to your death. Usually in Appalachia for some reason, but not always. Sometimes you'll be alone, but sometimes the person or pet that you hear at the door will be right beside you. With mimics lurking around, you can't even trust your senses, let alone your loved ones. It's isolating. It's terrifying. 

Frequently Asked Questions About Mimics

Are mimics real?

Depends on what you mean by real. Countless cultures have a version of a spiritual or physical double; something that either sounds exactly like or looks exactly like a real human being, or both. Maybe they even look like someone you love, but it isn't really them. That concept is ancient and genuinely widespread. The specific creature people are calling a "mimic" online, however, seems to have been made up on the internet sometime between 2017 and 2020. Whether that means the experiences people are reporting aren't real is a separate question entirely.

Where do mimics come from?

The modern mimic seems to have been shaped by several things coming together. There are doppelgangers, which in the original German concept are really more of a bad omen; they're not haunting you or hunting you. There are Navajo Skinwalkers, which people have unfortunately conflated with Appalachian folklore even though Navajo territory is largely in Arizona and New Mexico, which is a very far cry from the Appalachian Mountains. And there's the crocotta, described by Pliny the Elder in his work Natural History between 77 and 79 CE as a hybrid creature that mimics the voice of men and cattle. Another ancient Greek author wrote of a creature that imitates the human voice, calls men by name at night, and devours those who approach.

Why are mimics associated with Appalachia?

Honestly, I cannot quite pinpoint why. What I can tell you is that the Wendigo—a figure from Algonquian folklore associated with the Northeast Appalachian mountains and forests—appears in the 2018 video game Fallout 76, set in a post-apocalyptic Appalachia. I have a hunch that a lot of people have accidentally conflated Wendigos and Skinwalkers, meaning they think they're the same thing or get them confused for one another. Wendigos are associated with Appalachia. Skinwalkers are not. And yet on TikTok and Reddit, almost all talk about Skinwalkers ties it to Appalachia. You see what I mean?

Are mimics related to doppelgangers?

Mimics kind of… mimic several other folkloric phenomena: doppelgangers, Skinwalkers, the South Korean Jangsan Tiger, changelings across half a dozen European cultures, and the Ecuadorian La Tunda, which I've covered on this show before. Countless cultures have a version of something that sounds exactly like or looks exactly like a real human being, but isn't. Which begs the question: why is this so common across so many different cultures?

When did people start calling them mimics? 

From 2010 to 2014, there's no paranormal content on Google, Reddit, YouTube, or TikTok about mimics by name. In 2015, one Reddit comment mentions them in passing while discussing a fictional horror story on r/nosleep—and even then, the person puts the word in quotation marks. In 2016, there's one YouTube short horror film. In 2020, someone on a forum says they personally refer to Skinwalkers as mimics. That's the closest we get for a long time to actually calling mimics mimics. The explosion in popularity—the TikToks, the Reddit threads, the encounters—comes after that.

Did Dungeons & Dragons invent mimics? 

D&D has had a monster called a Mimic since 1974. It first appeared in the rulebooks in 1977. But the D&D mimic can only pretend to be things made of stone or wood, and it doesn't mimic voices. The entire point of the D&D Mimic is to instill paranoia in players who can never be sure if a chest of treasure is really a chest, or a mimic that's going to slaughter them. It's not the same creature, but it's clearly part of how the concept entered the cultural vocabulary. There are also mimics in Dark Souls, Terraria, and Minecraft. The strange road, you might say, was paved with mimic intention.

What are Appalachian mimics specifically? 

Appalachian mimics are the internet's current version of the concept—a creature that mimics the voices of people you love, usually with the goal of luring you outside or into danger, often in wooded or isolated areas. The Appalachian association seems to come partly from the conflation of Wendigo folklore with Appalachian settings, and partly from how that was amplified by Fallout 76 and then spread through TikTok. 

Want to go deeper down the rabbit hole?

This post barely scratches the strange surface of what I found. The full episode covers the complete timeline of how mimics evolved from ancient Greece to Roblox, why I think D&D, Five Nights at Freddy's, and a 2017 Korean horror film all played a role, and what it means that a creature invented on the internet is now showing up in what sound like genuine, terrifying experiences.

Listen to Episode 53 wherever you get your spooky podcasts—or watch on YouTube.

And if you have your own strange story of the unexplained, submit it HERE!

Remember: you can feel afraid and not be in danger.