Appearing on Chicago’s WGN9 News, the founder of the “Birds Aren’t Real” parody movement based on conspiratorial theories, Peter McIndoe, created a viral moment by upchucking a cup of coffee directly toward the camera.
McIndoe, a college dropout who founded the movement in 2017, told WGN anchor Larry Potash, “Gen Z is full of some amazing men, women and children who are aiming for change, and I think that that is just what our movement’s all about.”
Potash pointed out, “But it’s more than just Gen Z’s falling for conspiracy theories; why—”
At that point McIndoe upchucked all the coffee in his mouth directly into the camera.
“You all right?” Potash asked solicitously.
“Oh my God. I’m so nervous. I’m so sorry,” McIndoe managed, still retching his guts out while the screen hurriedly switched to videos of people with signs reading “Birds Aren’t Real” and “Not Without A Fight” while McIndoe could still be heard heaving.
The screen cut back to Potash saying, “Well, we hope you’re okay. Why don’t we give you some time to collect yourself. If you need help let us know in the control room there and we’ll get back to you if we can.”
Turning back to weather anchor Paul Konrad as he and fellow host Robin Baumgarten couldn’t help laughing, he continued, “Well, Paul, let me tell you something. Is there any weather today?”
Konrad answered, “I’m not even sure what happened there.”
Baumgarten interjected, “ I don’t know …”
Potash explained, “He was choking on his coffee. It’s not easy to be on TV, Paul, some people, gets them nervous … I just hope that that young man is okay.”
“Yeah, me too,” Konrad agreed.
Potash concluded, “All right.”
Baumgarten, “Ehhhhh …”
This is incredible, @WGNNews. pic.twitter.com/J3h9ebRE9g
— Tim Hogan (@timjhogan) January 7, 2022
The New York Times reported in December:
On Instagram and TikTok, Birds Aren’t Real accounts have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers, and YouTube videos about it have gone viral, adding:
Last month, Birds Aren’t Real adherents even protested outside Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to demand that the company change its bird logo. The events were all connected by a Gen Z-fueled conspiracy theory, which posits that birds don’t exist and are really drone replicas installed by the U.S. government to spy on Americans. Hundreds of thousands of young people have joined the movement, wearing Birds Aren’t Real T-shirts, swarming rallies and spreading the slogan.
Although he started the movement to look as though it was serious, McIndoe later admitted it was a parody, saying, “Dealing in the world of misinformation for the past few years, we’ve been really conscious of the line we walk….The idea is meant to be so preposterous, but we make sure nothing we’re saying is too realistic. That’s a consideration with coming out of character.”
“Birds Aren’t Real is not a shallow satire of conspiracies from the outside. It is from the deep inside,” he continued. “A lot of people in our generation feel the lunacy in all this, and Birds Aren’t Real has been a way for people to process that.”
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Source: Dailywire
