Birds Aren't Real, or Are They? Inside a Gen Z Conspiracy Theory.

Peter McIndoe, the 23-year-old creator of the viral Birds Aren’t Real movement, is ready to reveal what the effort is really about! “It’s about holding up a mirror to America in the internet age,” said McIndoe, who grew up in a deeply conservative and religious community marinated in conspiracies. He had posted that birds are really drone replicas installed by the U.S. government to spy on Americans. Hundreds of thousands of young people have joined what began as a spontaneous joke McIndoe and the movement’s followers are in on it: What Birds Aren’t Real truly is, they say, is a parody with a purpose, an attempt to upend the rabbit hole of misinformation with absurdism."