all for a larp
FOWL WORDS
‘Birds Aren’t Real’ Is the Conspiracy Theory Mocking QAnon
In an age where outlandish theories command national attention, members of Generation Z have turned disinformation into performance art.
Some people believe Earth is flat. Some people believe the Trump administration is using a seedy internet forum to send coded messages about Satanic pedophile rings. Now a movement of young memers is parodying more established conspiracy movements with an outlandish claim of its own.
The U.S. government eradicated all birds in 2001 and replaced them with surveillance drones, the Birds Aren’t Real movement alleges. The movement (which conveniently sells merchandise) is thriving off young people’s sense of the absurd in the Trump era, the movement’s founder said.
It’s disinformation as performance art. And it’s only half as ridiculous as some earnest conspiracy theories.
Peter McIndoe, 20, says he’s completely serious in his belief that birds are actually inorganic machines designed to surveil and police Americans. The movement, which he started last year, has spiked in recent weeks, after it caught the notice of popular YouTubers and meme accounts. “The higher ups were so annoyed that birds had been dropping fecal matter on their car windows that they vowed to wipe out every single flying feathered creature in North America,” and replaced them with robots from 1959 to 2001, the group claims on its website.
But in interviews with The Daily Beast, McIndoe and four regional Birds Aren’t Real leaders all took jabs at other conspiracy movements, with some regional chapters outright admitting that the whole thing was satire.
“I do get asked a lot ‘is this satirical? Is it a joke?’” McIndoe told The Daily Beast. “Frankly I think the concept of it being some sort of socio-political satire, or the thought of it being an observation on the post-truth era through comedy, I think that’s kind of absurd. I think our values and our views should be valued just as equally as any others. And I think just because we’re saying ‘birds aren’t real,’ that should be true with the same respect as when people say birds are real.”
Earlier in the movement’s history, McIndoe was more upfront about its satirical nature.
“i made a satirical movement a few months ago, and people on instagram seem to like it a lot,” he posted on Facebook in November 2017. “now there's a facebook so the moms of the current ‘bird truthers’ can be in on it too.”
Now, a year into the movement, he distanced himself. “That was actually by a staff member who has since been removed,” he said of that old Facebook post.
Birds are real. This is demonstrably true, and has been since before the dawn of humanity. The Audubon Society, a non-profit for bird conservation, documented the meme earlier this month, and declared it to be a joke.
“Wow—we sure hope so,” an Audubon Society spokesperson told The Daily Beast when asked whether birds are real.
But the joke, and an online shop that monetizes it, surged in popularity in late October. That’s when YouTuber PieDiePie featured the meme in a semi-credulous video that racked up more than 4 million views. A number of the movement’s most vocal backers got involved around the same time.
Unlike QAnon, which draws a large middle-aged fan base, Birds Aren’t Real is popular with Generation Z.
The “Birds Aren’t Real Ohio” Instagram account is run by a college student who bought the movement’s merchandise then realized the fake movement had no Ohio chapter. Last month “I [direct messaged] the ‘official’ Birds Aren’t Real Twitter account and asked if I could run the Ohio chapter and they said yes,” the student told The Daily Beast via Instagram message.
“For me personally, the Birds Aren’t Real movement is more of a satirical approach to counteracting such far-fetched conspiracies (such as flat earthers),” Birds Aren’t Real Ohio said. “When making my posts, I try to make them humorous but still serious enough to make people think. This is a fun challenge for me, and I hope at least mildly entertaining for those that follow my account!”
An Instagram account for “Birds Aren’t Real NY” said the operation was a parody of “other conspiracy theories since the idea that birds aren’t real is just as outlandish as the earth being flat.” The satire had flourished on Instagram, where anti-bird jokes can be grafted onto “trending memes since they usually all have the same setups.”
Austin, Texas’s “Birds Aren’t Real” Instagram account insisted they sincerely believed in the movement. But even this chapter said some of their work was in satirizing other conspiracy movements.