All the world's a stage

Lars de Wildt focuses on the “Birds Aren’t Real” (BAR) conspiracy theory, which claims that birds are government surveillance drones and that the COVID-19 pandemic was a cover for changing their batteries. Drawing on BAR&s;s social media content, parodic in nature, as well as documentaries and legacy media interviews, this chapter argues that BAR is not an outlier in the realm of online conspiracy theories but rather serves as a paradigm for how these theories “play” with truth. De Wildt explores how BAR functions as social media theater, blending memes and marches to create an alternative world in the public sphere, drawing participants into its narrative in the tradition of Boal and Brecht. BAR&s;s performance embodies a voluntary suspension of reality, in line with the playful principles proposed by Huizinga, Caillois, and Sutton-Smith. The chapter concludes that BAR&s;s playful, parodic worlding is representative of how all conspiracy theories blur the line between truth and play, offering alternative hypothetical worlds for people to engage with.