In 2017, artists Peter McIndoe and Connor Gaydos set themselves an unusual mission. Concerned about the rise of conspiratorial thinking, they decided to create a fake movement called ‘Birds Aren’t Real.’ The project was led by McIndoe’s self created alter ego – a caricatured composite of the many conspiracy theorists whose outlandish claims have gained increasing traction over recent years.
They used the power of the internet to spread the idea that birds in the United States aren’t real. Using reams of fake evidence, they instead peddled the theory that in the 1970’s, billions of birds were poisoned by the government, replaced by robotic drones for the sole purpose of spying on its citizens. McIndoe and Gaydos did this to test the integrity of the media motivated by their curiosity to see if any outlets would run the story. They received more attention than they had anticipated and maintained the charade for years before finally revealing their ruse in 2021.
Following on from this experiment, BIRDS AREN’T REAL is satirical compilation of all the ‘research’ that McIndoe and Gaydos initially gathered as a bit of a joke in support of the faux objective to convince the US government to cease bird surveillance.
The book itself is interesting because it uses all of the usual conspiracy tricks to reinforce the ease with which disinformation spreads, highlighting a disturbing lack of scrutiny by media outlets. It also exposes the concerning rise in the amount of people who are willing to believe without critically questioning the validity of the sources that influence their thinking.
From the outset, alarmist rhetoric common to the full range of conspiracy theories establishes a satirical tone. It continues through the book, offering absurd evidence and false narratives to push the outlandish suggestion that governments and corporations are acting in cahoots to cover up this avian atrocity.
Fabricated documents and re-invented histories combine to support the logical fallacies that riddle the pages to present a flawed and inconsistent theory that offers the reader some witty and clever moments amuse the reader.
For example, the ‘official’ narrative that John F Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald is rebuked, with the true cause of his death attributed instead to a hummingbird drone. US involvement in the Vietnam war had nothing to do with defeating the Viet Cong and was instead a ploy in pursuit of gathering Bauxite, a resource needed in the construction of the bird drones. Seagulls that swoop to steal your chips are in fact on a mission to steal our DNA left behind from out saliva. There’s a whole section dedicated to the different types of bird drones.
Mostly, the book stitches together a series of outlandish assertions that are humorous to start, but it all starts to wear a little thin as the professed whistleblowers continue to plug this conspiracy theory for longer than the reader is able to sustain their interest. What started as a social experiment has culminated in the collection of material in this book that makes a promising start, but it wanes as some ideas become repetitive and the focus gets a little lost.
It’s a light, risible read but you may find yourself skipping pages.
