By now, you have likely heard the story of the mother who discovered a YouTube video about toys that showed Spider-Man and Elsa in a compromising position with no place in Erendelle. That wasn’t a mimic, or copycat channel, but it’s now the boogie man of letting your kids watch YouTube.

I don’t even know if I was a mom when I read about that. But I remember that moment when parents around the world were introduced to the concept of YouTube being the Wild West with no sheriff.

We love the channel chickn nuggit, which is sometimes dark humor and often quite entertaining short animations. Today, in the middle of a compilation of their TikToks, there was a very slight reference to oral sex. If you didn’t know of the existence of oral sex, then you might not get the innuendo.

But that is not the chickn nuggit I know and approved for my kids, so I looked closer.

screenshot of the mimic YouTube channel "Chicken animation" on a television — Chikn animation is the channel that steals content from the popular TikTok animated series Chikn Nuggit.

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What is a Mimic Channel?

That’s when I saw that it’s a mimic, or copycat channel, where someone steals content and inserts their own inappropriate content right in the middle of it. That’s bad enough, but that also means these mimics outright steal entire channels to make money off the original channel’s reputation while tarnishing it for any who don’t pay close attention.

How to ID a Mimic Channel

*Check the channel’s name. The generic “animation” in the name tipped me off.

*Check the theme music. If you’re familiar with the channel’s real theme music and it sounds off, then it’s probably a mimic channel.

*Check the subscriber count. The true chikn nuggit channel has 2.9M subscribers, and this mimic channel has 26,300.

*Check the video description. Often they lay breadcrumbs in case they get hit with a copyright infringement from the original animators, which can cause a lot of turmoil for a YouTube channel.

Chikn animation, for instance, has this in their video description

♥️ Please note: The purpose of this channel is solely for the promotion of the tiktokers, streamers. All rights belong to their respective owners. I do not own some of this content.

I was able to catch this before our kids saw it, or I wouldn’t have noticed the difference until I manually audited their channels. The algorithm showed this to us because the mimic channel looks to be connected to the authentic – and quite good -chickn nuggit channel, even though it is anything but.

I watch YouTube so you don't have to.