Listen, you invite the “Birds Aren’t Real” guy on live TV and you’re almost certainly going to get trolled. WGN News in Chicago found that out the hard way.
In a clip that’s gone viral, Peter McIndoe — the 23-year-old creator of the faux conspiracy theory — fake vomits milk as he talks to the news anchors. At first, however, things seem normal in the interview. McIndoe talks about how “Gen Z is full of some amazing men, women, and children” (lol) “that are aiming for change and I think that is what our movement’s all about.”
But when the hosts try to interject with more questions, McIndoe fake voms what looks like milk out of a coffee cup.
“Oh my God, I’m so nervous, I’m so sorry,” McIndoe says through spit-up. Hilariously, he wretches and sticks to the bit as the anchors cut to the weather, unsure about what’s going on. It’s pretty great.
If you’re unfamiliar with the “Birds Aren’t Real” movement, it’s a fake conspiracy theory that pokes fun at other conspiracy theories such as the whole QAnon nonsense. It’s basically a bunch of Gen Z kids pretending that all birds were replaced with drones by the government in order to spy on Americans. The New York Times‘ Taylor Lorenz wrote a definitive piece featuring McIndoe briefly breaking character to explain the movement.
It’s not totally clear if the Chicago news station knew McIndoe fakes the conspiracy theory — one hopes they read the Times article — but at the very least they set themselves up for a massive troll. Invite the “Birds Aren’t Real” guy on live TV and you get what you get. The terminally online would’ve expected this — they’re in on the joke — but a local news station was woefully unprepared for the ten layers of irony to every internet joke.
To wit: The Birds Aren’t Real TikTok account — which is verified (lol) and run by McIndoe — was already joking about the troll, acting as if he had really thrown up. “The most embarrassing moment of my life,” McIndoe wrote about the viral moment. But don’t be fooled, it was definitely all a troll.
One commenter posted, “They used ‘birds’ to poison his coffee.”
To which the Birds Aren’t Real account responded: “We are looking into this but have no conclusive evidence to suggest.”