‘Birds Aren’t Real’: How a parody conspiracy movement fought ‘misinformation with lunacy’

A bizarrely popular Gen Z-fuelled movement behind the conspiracy theory that birds aren’t real has prompted several protests in the US since it first sprang in 2017. One of its wildest marches was when a group of people flocked to the headquarters of Twitter in the US city of San Francisco to demand removal of its bird logo in November 2021, videos of which unsurprisingly, went viral on the internet. Gen Z’s ‘Birds Aren’t Real’ movement has now amassed a staggering 75,000 followers on Twitter and over 3.5 lakh supporters on Instagram since its creation.

Are Birds real? The ‘Birds Aren’t Real’ movement brought hundreds of thousands of followers into its fold by claiming the answer to that question was “no”. A core notion that the group’s founder has maintained since 2017. However, last week, the group’s creator “broke character” and admitted that birds indeed are real.

Fighting misinformation with lunacy

23-year-old Peter McIndoe created the ‘Birds Aren’t Real’ movement out of what he says was ‘a whim’ in January 2017. In an interview to the New York Times, he revealed that it was the time when Donald Trump had just been sworn in as President of the United States and Peter came across protesters in Memphis, where he lived, and decided that he would make a poster that said “Birds Aren’t Real” and join the crowds ‘just for laughs’. He went on to add that it was a ‘spontaneous joke’ but that it was also a ‘reflection of the absurdity everyone was feeling.’

‘Wake up, America! Wake up!’

As he walked among the protesters, he continued to craft a conspiracy theory ‘on the spot’. He would then go on to declare that the US government had replaced all birds with secret government drones and replicas to spy on Americans and other people worldwide. On his first march among unassuming and perplexed protesters, he yelled ‘Birds are a myth; they’re an illusion. Wake up America! Wake up!’ However, what he didn’t realise that was without his knowledge, someone filmed the absurdity and posted it online, which quickly became viral.

The phrase ‘Birds Aren’t Real’ went on to become a sensation in the country quickly and Peter decided to build on the momentum generated. He admitted to The New York Times of having written a fake history for the movement, hired an actor to play a former CIA agent who confessed to bird drone surveillance, created a fully functional website, official membership cards and even made several videos and short documentaries to support their claim. He also sold ‘Birds Aren’t Real’ merchandise and created a significant social media presence for the group.

Take a look at some hilarious ‘Birds Aren’t Real’ posts 

Image: Screengrab from 'birds aren't real' website

In the interview, quipped that he started ‘embodying the character and building out the world this character belonged to.’ Hundreds of thousands of people joined the movement. Members formed an on-the-ground activism network called the ‘Bird Brigade,’ which frequently gate-crashed other organised political rallies in the US. Instead of supporting the protests, however, they went on to hijack them with their own ‘Birds Aren’t Real’ slogans to “de-escalate tensions,” Peter said.

Peter claimed in the interview that before every protest, the group would hold a moment of silence to ‘commemorate the lives of 12 billion birds killed by the US government between 1959-2001’. This information is also available on the group’s Instagram account. After observing a moment of silence, the group’s supporters would break into chants and spill into the streets and cause agonising chaos stoked by wits and humour.

Throughout the movement’s rise, Peter has maintained in all the interviews he has given that he fully believed in the conspiracy theory. That is, until last week when he spilt the beans to New York Times after he admitted that it was all intentional and that he has been spreading misinformation for the past 4 years, but, he added, ‘with a purpose’. The objective was to fight and satirize misinformation, he claimed.

Peter added that he was raised on the internet, which fed him misinformation for years and opined that he noticed other people facing the same problem. So when he started the group there was only one catch-none of its followers should actually believe the ideology but understand it as a way to fight misinformation and protest anyway. ‘We were able to construct an entirely fictional world that was reported on as fact by local media and questioned by members of the public,’ he said. After Peter came clean with the purpose of the group’s existence, he claimed that he would use the movement’s success to continue fighting misinformation with lunacy.