[ad_1]
His puke was as fake as his conspiracy theory.
The founder of Birds Aren’t Real — a parody movement that suggests birds are actually government-planted drones spying on us all — horrifyingly threw up during a live interview on a Chicago news show on Thursday.
However, just like the conspiracy theory he dreamed up, it was all just a stunt to punk the press.
Peter McIndoe, 23, was chatting about his absurd creation with WGN-TV in Chicago when, less than a minute into the interview, he puked after taking a big swig of a creamy mystery beverage.
“I’m nervous — I’m sorry,” he said mid-meltdown before the livestream cut away.
But it was later revealed to be a stunt, and he was just regurgitating the milk in his mug to troll the news station.
Prior to his now-viral — albeit fake — vomit, Memphis-based McIndoe explained the group’s motives, saying that Gen Z “aiming for change” is what the Birds Aren’t Real movement is “all about.”
Unlike other conspiracy theories, the hundreds of thousands of Birds Aren’t Real enthusiasts know that birds are, in fact, very real. In other words, this is peak humor for them and their 76,000 Twitter followers. They also have their own sub-Reddit, which has amassed 420,000 members since its creation in 2017.
After the incident, McIndoe tweeted the clip from the Birds Aren’t Real official Twitter account, apologizing to the group and calling it the “most embarrassing moment” of his life.
But don’t be fooled: He was simply married to the bit, driving the satire home.
His loyal followers rallied around him in support, with one member of the group, Cameron Kasky, tweeting to McIndoe, “You have given this movement everything and it should never be expected of you to be moving at 100% 24/7. You are doing your best and that’s all anybody can ask for. Take a breath, don’t listen to hate, relax, and take care of yourself. A lot of people look up to you.”
The interview came after the US Consumer Product Safety Commission tweeted “Birds are real” on Jan. 5, along with a slew of humorous bird memes to promote reporting unsafe products to the department.
The tweet prompted another deadpan response from McIndoe.
“Why is the Government so obsessed with forcing this disgusting messaging upon us?” he posted in response. “Do not listen to the propagandists. Do not let them into your brain. All this tweet does is show the world that we are winning.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time McIndoe has gained media attention for his satirical hilarity.
In 2019, he appeared on a Tennessee news channel to promote a billboard the group commissioned in the area. He claimed the government committed a “genocide” of birds and replaced them with spying drones.
“We do not find this to be a humorous issue,” he said at the time, despite the account’s satirical nature.
In a December interview with the New York Times, McIndoe dropped the act for a moment and said the movement was created to fight lunacy with lunacy.
“Dealing in the world of misinformation for the past few years, we’ve been really conscious of the line we walk,” he said. “The idea is meant to be so preposterous, but we make sure nothing we’re saying is too realistic.”
[ad_2]