A simulacrum is a copy that has outgrown any original

Baudrillard's starting definition is precise: a simulacrum isn't merely an imitation or a lesser copy of something real, it's a representation that either never had a real original to begin with or has fully detached from whatever original it once referenced. This differs sharply from ordinary counterfeiting or forgery, which still implicitly acknowledges a genuine original it's trying to imitate.

He distinguishes simulation, the ongoing process of producing and circulating these unmoored copies, from simple fakery or role-play, arguing that simulation ultimately dissolves the very distinction between true and false, real and pretend, that fakery still depends on. A theme park recreation of a historical town isn't lying about a real place; it's constructing an experience that people respond to as though it were the real thing, without any deception being strictly necessary.

This definitional move is what lets Baudrillard later argue that entire domains of modern life, from political image-making to consumer branding, operate as simulacra rather than mere exaggerations or distortions of something genuinely real underneath.

Takeaway: ask not whether a copy resembles reality, but whether an original ever existed for it to resemble in the first place.