Here again, classic songbirds and rotund groundbirds like grouse and ptarmigans have the advantage: They look like little balls of fluff, an important component for birbness. (This shape factor also complements the aforementioned roundness of the word “birb” itself.) Given this, the rounder or fluffier a bird is, the more birblike it is likely to be. People tend to regard round animals as cuter, and round objects in general to be more pleasant. Rule 2: Birbs are often (though not always) round. We may understand, then, that while “birb” can be a developmental stage, some birds are birbs their whole lives. Even large birds start small, however: An ostrich or crane chick is absolutely a birb. Adult Ostriches are thus disqualified, as is any bird larger than a turkey warblers, sparrows, flycatchers, and other songbirds are the most likely demographic. Rule 1: Birbs are often (though not conclusively) small. Photo: Tara Tanaka/Audubon Photography Awards What this question requires, therefore, are some basic operational rules. Yet some tension remains: How can all birds be birbs if smallness or cuteness are in the equation? Clearly some birds get more recognition for an innate birbness.
A video on the youtube channel Lucidchart offers its own expansive suggestions: All birds are birbs, a chunky bird is a borb, and a fluffed-up bird is a floof. The subreddit r/birbs defines a birb as any bird that’s “being funny, cute, or silly in some way." Urban Dictionary has a more varied set of definitions, many of which allude to a generalized smallness. Which of them are birb? Are some birds more birb-like than others? What is a birb, really?įirst, let’s consider the canonized usages. Sit outside an Austin coffeeshop on a pleasant fall day, and many urban birds present themselves for perusal: strutting, sardonic grackles, chatty parakeets, bustling sparrows. It is roughly akin to “ doggo,” or “ snek,” yet all dogs and snakes are contained within those words birb remains amorphous. Wow.”) Yet unlike these online gags, or memes, birb functions as a category rather than a stock character. What a good birb, you might say, or I’m so glad we went birb-watching, or I love Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birbs.īirb is a slightly daffy word from the same school of internet absurdity that gave us LOLCats (“ I Can Haz Cheezburger”) and Doge (“ Much Meme, very cute. The term is seemingly designed for the internet: one syllable, beginning and ending with “b,” connoting a pleasant roundness, a warm mouth-feel. The word began, as near as anyone can tell, when the absurdist Twitter account BirdsRightsActivist tweeted the single word “Birb,” out on November 2012 two years later, it had multiple entries in Urban Dictionary and a dedicated reddit forum. For those not terminally online, birb is affectionate internet-speak for birds. There are certain terms that embed themselves into your consciousness like a woodpecker’s beak in particle board.
The piece has been updated to reflect this. A note from the author: Upon further reflection-and a very good point made on Twitter-I concede that the Shoebill qualifies as a birb under Rule 3's Muppet Exemption.
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