I AM NOT A HUMAN
When the uncanny valley makes you doubt your obvious reality
Horror relies on primal fears: darkness, death, the unknown. But there’s something even more terrifying lurking underneath it all. The threats that hide in plain sight, those that make you question your own instincts.
In this case, I’m speaking of the uncanny valley. As humans, we are conditioned to trust other humans for survival… but what happens when our fellow humans aren’t what they seem?
There are small tells. You have to pay attention to the details. You must read between the lines.
After all, your life is on the line.
From the Inside
Familiar faces turned sinister. That’s probably the best way to describe the series From.
In a world where those you loved dearly can turn into soulless, bloodthirsty monsters, the uncanny valley reigns supreme.
From in particular is a chilling case on the subject. Although similar to the Mandela Catalogue in concept, From still stands as its own thing spectacularly.
From forces its characters into a parallel dimension through a hellish town nobody can escape (think Silent Hill here). In this town, nocturnal creatures stalk the night, lurking for their next kill. These creatures look like humans but lack any real humanity.
In the first episode of the series, a little girl lets in a creature that looks like her grandmother. Tricked by the creature playing the role so well, the girl ultimately succumbs into being the series’ first victim, along with the rest of her family.
The show is packed with tricksters, but the real terror is epistemic: townsfolk can’t tell what’s real, so certainty dies first.
The citizens of this mysterious town aren’t all hardened individuals; they’re parents, they’re children, they’re people who have suffered. They are normal people put in terrifying circumstances.
Winding up in this town, you’re left to wonder: is this actually real? Am I dreaming? Am I dead? Is this hell? Maybe I’m actually just in a coma.
Yet, in the back of your head, you know it’s real. You know who you are. You know where you are. And, most terrifying of all, you know those creatures aren’t just some fever dreams.
But it’s hard to have a clear head when you hear your dead mother’s voice outside your door. It’s hard to stay strong when you hear a child begging for help. But these are not your neighbors. They are not your friends; they are not your family.
They only wear your family’s faces.
You do not know these people. Because… they aren’t people.
You Do Not Recognize the Bodies in the Water
The uncanny valley is more than how someone looks.
Take SCP-2316, for example. I’ve never really delved into the SCP series here before, but that’s because it’s such an expansive universe that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what I’d like to speak about… however, now seems like the perfect time to bring up the horrors lurking in the water.
For context, SCP stands for “Secure. Contain. Protect.” and is the acronym for the fictional SCP Foundation, which specializes in neutralizing supernatural threats to our world. Each “threat” is in the SCP database, named after various numbers, instead of having any real sense of identity.
SCP-2316 is a lake with a devastating past. In 1975, a group of students drowned in the lake by mysterious forces, though it’s heavily implied that the SCP Foundation is indirectly involved in the children’s deaths.
The uncanny valley of this entity comes from its manipulation, convincing its victim to join their “friends” in the lake. The victim will see the bodies in the lake as people they recognize, thus being more willing to go into the lake in a false sense of unity, resulting in their drowning.
Most horrifying, most victims succumb to the entity. Its alluring nature of offering friends and loved ones in return for your life is… intoxicating. People are quick to give in. People are quick to recognize the bodies in the water.
This may sound familiar to you, considering this SCP went viral in 2021 on TikTok with a trending audio.
There’s just something about this one that truly hits a nerve. It’s not the traditional uncanny valley… but worse. It plays into the human emotion too well, something that the typical visuals of the uncanny valley don’t really focus on.
It’s not about how it looks; it’s about how it makes you feel. You don’t feel disturbed, you feel weirdly comforted.
It is horror disguised in coziness. Horror disguised as old friends waiting for your return.
Repeat and affirm:
I do not recognize the bodies in the water.
I do not recognize the bodies in the water.
I do not recognize the bodies in the water.
Am I A Human?
If you were tasked with differentiating between a human and non-human entity, do you think you’d be able to?
Does it sound easy to recognize your fellow humans? After all, we humans have a certain look, don’t we? We know what we look like. Our eyes are the windows to our souls - but are we even aware enough to know what that means?
No, I’m not a Human is a horror visual novel game based in survival; you must protect yourself against the Visitors and only befriend fellow humans.
When a solar flare causes intense heat waves across the world, “Visitors” from underground begin to invade. The player is told to stay inside, though not alone - you must let in humans so you’re not vulnerable to attacks… however, you have to discern which are humans and which are Visitors.
Letting a Visitor into your home puts yourself and others at risk, so it is vital to pay attention to the signs to make sure who is who. Guidelines come from FEMA—useful at first, then eerily prescriptive as authority hardens into performance.
Each night, you’re met with various people at your door. Each tells a story; many appear off in subtle ways. Despite their appearances, any of them can be human… so it’s crucial to be on guard at all times.
No, I’m not a Human forces the player to see the uncanny valley differently. No longer is it obvious to tell who is or isn’t human.
Not every human fits a template; sometimes humans don’t look human.
So how are you to choose who lives and who dies if you can’t even tell?
Are We Actually Scared?
The uncanny valley is about more than how something looks.
It’s the feeling of going crazy. The feeling that we aren’t as certain about something that we never questioned before.
When humans are faced with the possibility that their reality isn’t true, the destabilizing feeling of losing grip on the truth makes us spiral. We feel small, threatened, and unsure.
It’s a numbing and unsettling feeling. Yet… our brains can always tell in the end. That one twitch of the eyeball, that perfectly straight smile, that symmetrical face: you know there’s something wrong immediately.
While we may question our reality for just a moment, our intuition always brings us back to center.
The uncanny valley is especially important now in the age of AI, robot citizens, and blatant misinformation. More concerning, it’s relevant in how we see our government, as it has played in our faces.
However, now it feels much more obvious. We are fed lies as our authorities play pretend. They are, in every sense of the phrase, bad actors. The majority of the people know the truth, seeing past the false securities that the government tries to continuously shove down our throats.
We’re living with an uncanny performance from institutions, one that chooses to stash away secrets into the filing cabinet.
So… is it really the look that makes us shiver? Or is it that these things make us think twice?
Are we scared because we doubt ourselves? Because we feel helpless in our own head?
The scariest monster isn’t the one that looks wrong, but rather the one that makes you wonder if you’re wrong.
And… the only way to fight that monster, is to truly know who you are. To affirm your core values, beliefs, and identity. To know yourself, to know your art, and to know the best version of yourself.
Be clear and confident in who you are, and the uncanny valley can never touch you.