Thanks to the New York Times, I learned over the weekend that birds are not real. Oh, the information has been out there, and I don’t know how I missed it. Perhaps I am just not tuned into the metaverse, being over thirty[1] and all . . . . but I just did not catch on. Now I know. I understand.

You see, the birds have long since been replaced with drones that are surveilling our every movement. It is important that all right-thinking Americans be aware of their real purpose. Join the Birds Aren’t Real movement and find out. I personally intend to alter my disguise daily when I go outside so that the bird-drones can never identify me as the same person twice. Tweet the warning. Tweet it wide.

Okay. Let me keep this blog post shorter than my usual ruminations and just point you to the Times article by Taylor Lorenz that brings attention to what I think is one of the most effective satires on disinformation that I can recall in a long time. As the article reports, “Birds Aren’t Real” is the increasingly popular fabrication of Peter McIndoe, a college dropout who moved to Memphis, but grew up home-schooled in a conservative Christian family outside Cincinnati and later in Arkansas. It began as McIndoe’s spontaneous joke against pro-Trump counterprotesters at a women’s march in early 2017, after Trump had been inaugurated. It grew on social media to the point where 20 million people have viewed a TikTok video in which an actor portraying a CIA agent confesses to having worked on bird drone surveillance. “Birds Aren’t Real” paraphernalia, such as t-shirts, are available. Why do birds sit on power lines? That’s how the drones are recharged. The whole “conspiracy” has grown its own subculture, in which followers are in on the joke and those who take it seriously, well—they’re seen as

Another instance of massive drone surveillance of a fishing community in the Louisiana bayou.

having bigger problems than just bird drones.

Some supporters apparently refer to their brand of conspiracy satire as “fighting lunacy with lunacy.” Yes, there is still a need for the House Select Committee to continue its investigation into the January 6 pro-Trump riot in the nation’s Capitol. Numerous people were killed and injured, and it is serious business. It is important for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to pursue the Trump Organization for tax fraud, for the New York Attorney General to continue her investigation, for charges of election tampering to be pursued against Trump in Georgia.

But we can also laugh because, if there is one thing the true believers in disinformation cannot abide, it is not being taken seriously. Trump himself, who suffered a secret humorectomy[2] by alien doctors at some unidentified point in his adolescence, especially cannot handle being an object of satire or ridicule. So, join the joke: Birds Aren’t Real. Your belly laugh at the absurdism involved will make your day and help keep you healthy.

And remember, if some bird poop lands on your head, save it for evidence. It’s all part of the plan to make you believe. Just make sure you can trust the people who do the lab test. 😊

Jim Schwab

[1] Unfortunately, I passed that age in 1980, before PCs and the Internet even existed on any large scale, but I’ve struggled to overcome this limitation. I live in fear of the solution revealed in the 1960s hippie movie, Wild in the Streets. I mean, since the 2016 election, you just never know what might become possible.

[2] This is the surgical removal of one’s sense of humor, including the ability to laugh at yourself. You won’t find the term in medical dictionaries because the coverup of such surgeries is all part of the conspiracy. If you must ask which conspiracy, you are clearly gullible and have bigger problems than the rest of us can solve. You may even have been an involuntary and unwitting victim of such surgery at a young age.