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Birds are real, a US government agency wants to assure you

And the US Consumer Product Safety Commission flew off on a meme tangent to prove it.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper
2 min read
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Ohio Division of Wildlife

A parody movement claims birds aren't real. Now, a government agency, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, is jumping in to defend its feathered friends.

Background: Peter McIndoe, 23, created the "Birds Aren't Real" movement in 2017 as a parody of conspiracy theories, according to The New York Times,  His storyline claimed birds are drones created by the government to spy on its citizens, although McIndoe says he's done with the joke now. "It's a way to laugh at the madness rather than be overcome by it," he told the newspaper.

Not everyone has heard of the "Birds Aren't Real" claim, but apparently someone at the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has, because on Wednesday, that organization's account tweeted, "Birds are real."

The tweet flew high with readers -- more than 35,000 people have liked it as of this writing.

Then the commission offered up a number of images of two birds having a long conversation -- oddly enough, about having a potluck. Seems one bird wants to be the host, but doesn't feel it can outdo the other bird's impressive potlucks. In the end, the birds decide to come together and host a joint event. Again, this really happened on a US government agency's Twitter account.

Turns out the thread was meant to promote something -- not potlucks or birds being real, but a government website, SaferProducts.gov, where consumers can report unsafe items. The account encouraged people to use the site "if a product you own unexpectedly blows up, lights something on fire, breaks dangerously, or does anything dangerous, really."

Maybe the birds mentioning slow cookers is meant to remind people of the (spoiler!) slow-cooker death in 2018 on the TV show This Is Us? Because if any product should've been reported to a dangerous-items website, that was it.

Regardless, people seemed to approve of a government agency breaking out from the boring and flying free as a bird.

"This was weird... and I 100% approve of it," wrote one person.

Said another, "This is by far the most efficient and effective use of my tax dollars. Thank you, all of you."