In Pittsburgh, Memphis and Los Angeles, massive billboards recently popped up declaring, “Birds Aren’t Real.”

最近,匹兹堡、孟菲斯和洛杉矶出现了巨大的广告牌,上面写着“鸟不是真的”(Birds Aren’t Real)。

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.

在Instagram和TikTok上,“鸟不是真的”帐户吸引了数十万粉丝,YouTube上有关该帐户的视频也迅速走红。

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.

上个月,“鸟不是真的”的粉丝甚至在旧金山的推特总部外抗议,要求该公司更改其小鸟标志。

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.

这些事件都与一个由Z世代推动的阴谋论有关,该阴谋论认为鸟并不存在,是美国政府为了监视美国人而布置的无人机。成千上万的年轻人参加了这项运动,他们穿着印有“鸟不是真的”口号的T恤,聚集在一起,传播这一口号。
(Z世代,美国及欧洲的流行用语,意指在1995-2009年间出生的人,又称网络世代、互联网世代,统指受到互联网、即时通讯、短讯、MP3、智能手机和平板电脑等科技产物影响很大的一代人)

It might smack of QAnon, the conspiracy theory that the world is controlled by an elite cabal of child-trafficking Democrats. Except that the creator of Birds Aren’t Real and the movement’s followers are in on a joke: They know that birds are, in fact, real and that their theory is made up.

这可能有点像 “匿名者Q”散布的阴谋论,“匿名者Q”声称全世界被贩卖儿童的民主党精英团体控制。只不过“鸟不是真的”运动的创始人和追随者是在开玩笑:他们知道鸟其实是真的,他们的口号是编造的。

What Birds Aren’t Real truly is, they say, is a parody social movement with a purpose. In a post-truth world dominated by online conspiracy theories, young people have coalesced around the effort to thumb their nose at, fight and poke fun at misinformation. It’s Gen Z’s attempt to upend the rabbit hole with absurdism.

他们说,“鸟不是真的”是一场有目的的社会运动。在一个网络充斥着阴谋论的后真相世界里,年轻人聚在一起,对虚假信息嗤之以鼻、对其予以还击和嘲笑。这是Z世代用荒诞来颠覆阴谋论的尝试。
原创翻译:龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


At the center of the movement is Peter McIndoe, 23, a floppy-haired college dropout in Memphis who created Birds Aren’t Real on a whim in 2017. For years, he stayed in character as the conspiracy theory’s chief believer, commanding acolytes to rage against those who challenged his dogma. But now, Mr. McIndoe said in an interview, he is ready to reveal the parody lest people think birds really are drones.

这场运动的核心人物是彼得·麦克因多,现年23岁,是个一头乱发的大学辍学生。他于2017年一时起意,创建了“鸟不是真的”组织。多年来,他一直扮演着阴谋论首席信徒的角色,指挥信徒们怒斥那些挑战教条的人。但现在,麦克因多在接受采访时说,他准备揭露这场模仿闹剧,以免人们认为鸟类真的是无人机。

Mr. McIndoe, too, marinated in conspiracies. For his first 18 years, he grew up in a deeply conservative and religious community with seven siblings outside Cincinnati, then in rural Arkansas. He was home-schooled, taught that “evolution was a massive brainwashing plan by the Democrats and Obama was the Antichrist,” he said.

麦克因多也曾浸淫在阴谋论之中。在人生的前18年里,他和七个兄弟姐妹在辛辛那提郊外一个非常保守的宗教社区长大,后来又住在阿肯色州的乡下。他没有上学,在家里接受教育,被教导说“进化论是民主党人的大规模洗脑计划,奥巴马是反基督者”等等。

By the time Mr. McIndoe left home for the University of Arkansas in 2016, he said, he realized he wasn’t the only young person forced to straddle multiple realities.

麦克因多说,2016年离开家去阿肯色大学时,他意识到自己不是唯一一个被迫跨越多重现实的年轻人。

Then in January 2017, Mr. McIndoe traveled to Memphis to visit friends. Donald J. Trump had just been sworn in as president, and there was a women’s march downtown. Pro-Trump counterprotesters were also there. When Mr. McIndoe saw them, he said, he ripped a poster off a wall, flipped it over and wrote three random words: “Birds Aren’t Real.”

2017年1月,麦克因多前往孟菲斯看望朋友。当时唐纳德·特朗普刚刚宣誓就任总统,市中心有一场女性大游行。反对抗议的特朗普支持者们也去了。麦克因多说,他当时从墙上撕下一张海报,把它翻过来,顺手写了一行字:“鸟不是真的。”

“It was a spontaneous joke, but it was a reflection of the absurdity everyone was feeling,” he said.

“这是一个灵机一动的玩笑,但它反映了所有人都能体会到的荒谬感,”他说。

Mr. McIndoe then walked around and improvised the Birds Aren’t Real conspiracy lore. He said he was part of a greater movement that believed that birds had been replaced with surveillance drones and that the cover up began in the 1970s. Unbeknown to him, he was filmed and the video posted on Facebook. It went viral, especially among teenagers in the South.

然后,麦克因多四处活动,即兴讲述了“鸟不是真的”这个阴谋论。他说,他参与了一个更大的运动,宣称鸟类已经被监控无人机取代,而且这个秘密行动从1970年代就开始了。
人们在不知情的情况下被秘密监控着,这段视频被发布在Facebook上后迅速走红,尤其活跃在南方的青少年中。

In Memphis, “Birds Aren’t Real” graffiti soon showed up. Photos of the phrase’s being scrawled on chalkboards and the walls of local high schools surfaced. People made “Birds Aren’t Real” stickers.

在孟菲斯,“鸟不是真的”涂鸦很快就出现了。当地中学黑板上和墙上写着“鸟不是真的”的照片也在网上流传。一些人还制作了“鸟不是真的”贴纸。

Mr. McIndoe decided to lean into Birds Aren’t Real. “I started embodying the character and building out the world this character belonged to,” he said. He and Connor Gaydos, a friend, wrote a false history of the movement, concocted elaborate theories and produced fake documents and evidence to support his wild claims.

麦克因多决定把“鸟不是真的”进行下去。“我开始塑造(这个阴谋论的)信徒角色,并构建这个角色所属的世界,”他说。他和朋友编造了一段关于这场运动的虚假历史,炮制出详尽的理论,并制作了虚假的文件和证据来支持他的阴谋论主张。

In 2018, Mr. McIndoe dropped out of college and moved to Memphis. To build Birds Aren’t Real further, he created a flyer that shot to the top of Reddit. He hired an actor to portray a former C.I.A. agent who confessed to working on bird drone surveillance; the video has more than 20 million views on TikTok. He also hired actors to represent adult bird truthers in videos that spread all over Instagram.

2018年,麦克因多从大学辍学,搬到了孟菲斯。为了把“鸟不是真的”推进下去,他做了一份传单,结果在Reddit上成了热帖。他雇了一名演员扮演一个前中情局特工,自称从事鸟形无人机的监控工作;这段视频在TikTok上被观看超过2000万次。他还雇了演员出演寻求真相的成年人,这些视频在Instagram上得到广泛传播。

To adults with concerns about Mr. McIndoe’s tactics, researchers said any harms were most likely minimal.

一些成年人对麦克因多的手段心存担忧,而研究人员却说即使造成了影响,效果也是微乎其微的。

“You have to weigh the potential negative effects with any of this stuff, but in this case it is so extremely small,” said Joshua Citarella, an independent researcher who studies internet culture “Allowing people to engage in collaborative world building is therapeutic because it lets them disarm conspiracism and engage in a safe way.”

研究互联网文化的独立研究员乔舒亚说“这种行为需要评估可能的负面效果,但具体在这个事情上,该阴谋论的危害是非常小的”。“让人参与到合作性的世界构建中来是有益的,因为这让他们可以拆穿阴谋论,以一种安全的方式来沟通。”

Mr. McIndoe said he kept the concerns top of mind. “Everything we’ve done with Birds Aren’t Real is made to make sure it doesn’t tip into where it could have a negative end result on the world,” he said. “It’s a safe space for people to come together and process the conspiracy takeover of America. It’s a way to laugh at the madness rather than be overcome by it.”

麦克因多说他注意到了这些担忧。“我们所做的一切,都会确保不会给世界带来负面影响,”他说。“这是个安全空间,让人们可以团结起来,理解美国被阴谋论淹没是怎么回事。这样一来我们可以去嘲笑这些疯狂的阴谋论,而不是被它洗脑。”

Birds Aren’t Real members have also become a political force. Many often join up with counterprotesters and actual conspiracy theorists to de-escalate tensions and delegitimize the people they are marching alongside with irreverent chants.

“鸟不是真的”成员已经形成了一股政治力量。当真正的阴谋论者和反对阴谋论者的人对峙时,他们就会出现缓解对峙气氛,在游行队伍里喊着不靠谱的口号来让抗议显得不那么正经。

In September, shortly after a restrictive new abortion law went into effect in Texas, Birds Aren’t Real members showed up at a protest held by anti-abortion activists at the University of Cincinnati. Supporters of the new law “had signs with very graphic imagery and were very aggressive in condemning people,” Mr. McIndoe said. “It led to arguments.”

9月,德克萨斯州一部严苛的新堕胎法生效后不久,“鸟不是真的”成员出现在抗议活动上。
支持新堕胎法的人手持非常有视觉冲击力的图片标语,并且对反堕胎人士给予咄咄逼人的责难,麦克因多说,结果活动出现了争执。”

But the Bird Brigade began chanting, “Birds aren’t real.” Their shouts soon overpowered the anti-abortion activists, who left.

这时“鸟不是真的”成员开始大喊:“鸟不是真的。”他们的喊声很快盖过了反堕胎活动人士,后者于是就离开了。

Mr. McIndoe now has big plans for 2022. Breaking character is necessary to help Birds Aren’t Real leap to the next level and forswear actual conspiracy theorists, he said. He added that he hoped to collaborate with major content creators and independent media like Channel 5 News, which is aimed at helping people make sense of America’s current state and the internet.

麦克因多准备在2022年大展拳脚。他说,“鸟不是真的”组织要想更进一步,推翻自身的设定并与真正的阴谋论者划清界限。
他还表示打算和互联网内容创作者以及第5频道等独立新闻媒体合作,旨在帮助人们理解美国当下以及互联网状况。