Birds Aren’t Real: The True Story of Mass Avian Murder and the Largest Surveillance Campaign in US History

The popular parody web conspiracy theory comes to the page in this swift and mordant read. The authors are performance artist/filmmaker McIndoe and Gaydos, the Gen Z satirists and self-described “public information officers” who proliferated the tongue-in-cheek Birds Aren’t Real movement. Their movement mocks other conspiracy theories such as QAnon and warns the masses that birds in the U.S. are actually government surveillance drones. Their book sticks to the gag with gusto; they even craft a detailed history of the movement dating back to the ’70s. Fun illustrations give readers insight into the cartoony mechanisms that power these bird-drones, spotlighting the various types of drones, the purpose that each disguised bird species serves, and instructions on how to stand up to the program that enables bird-drones, including knocking out the drones’ power and holding rallies. But some readers may find that the joke begins to drag in book form.