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Three thousand years in the future, anthropologists piece together the bizarre cult of the Divine Bird that sprung up in the mid-2000s on the primitive communication index known in those days as the “interNet”. In this mythology the Bird was a powerful yet capricious god... https://twitter.com/femmina/status/1329361060961271809
... whose adherents viewed it with a strange mixture of reverence and disgust, complaining about its often whim-based divine proclamations while bemoaning their inability to escape having dedicated their souls to its worship
The Divine Bird was clearly a chthonic deity, as many thousands of its hapless cultists referred to the gigantic interNet temple as the “site of Hell”
The high priest of the Divine Bird was named Jack, & the cultists often directed their prayers to him in the hopes that he would intercede on their behalf, perhaps to perform sacrifices to appease the deity. It was the custom in the mid-21st C for the priest to sport a long beard
It was by no means a peaceful, homogeneous religious order - its adherents constantly bickered amongst themselves, and would sometimes commit such severe infractions that the entire priesthood issued a message of excommunication. On occasion, the disgraced formed splinter cults
Less severe infractions allowed return to the fold if proper atonement was performed, such as publicly recanting a “tweet” (the in-cult language is complex, but we believe this term refers to an individual prayer or speech addressed to the Divine Bird or to other cultists)
The Divine Bird, being capricious and chthonic, is believed to have had separate incarnations through which it performed distinct personalities. The Incarnation of Wrath is described below.
The Incarnation of Chaos was represented by a goose https://twitter.com/emmagpaley/status/1329433743258488832
The Incarnation of Chaos was represented by a goose https://twitter.com/emmagpaley/status/1329433743258488832
Some scholars have presented the theory that the Divine Bird was given life by the devotion of its adherents, but most agree that the Bird was genuinely believed to be a living deity (cf. many “tweets” addressing it directly or discussing its caprice with other cultists)
The in-cult language evolved during the 21st C and reached astonishing levels of cryptic complexity. Many devotees seem to have communicated entirely in sophisticated hieroglyphics, the meanings of most of which have been lost to time https://twitter.com/bsburk15/status/1329436410374463492
Cats feature prominently in the hieroglyphs, which suggests to some scholars the idea that a direct line may be traced from Ancient Egypt to Ancient InterNet
The Book of Faces is commonly believed among anthropologists to have been some sort of occult grimoire revered by the Cult of the Divine Bird’s most prominent religious rival. At times the devotees of the Bird engaged in vicious mockery of the Book’s cultists. https://twitter.com/jobobs_smash/status/1329438773374029825
The high priest of the Book, whose name is believed to have been Mark, was viewed by the Bird’s devotees as an apostate, & the Book itself a tool of evil. It is hard to reconcile their attitude to the Book with the outcry they often raised at their own god’s arbitrary decisions.
While birds and cats were the most sacred animals to the Cult of the Divine Bird, many adherents also followed branches of doctrine that encouraged religious attachment to other creatures, such as Red Pandas, Foxes, and Dogs (referred to in cult lingo as “puppers”) https://twitter.com/khoshtistic/status/1329440221772050437
The mysterious Picrew is believed to have been a method for Divine Bird cultists to attempt to achieve greater closeness to divinity by remaking their likenesses in the image of their god. Results were wildly disparate, and scholars remain largely baffled by this religious art. https://twitter.com/Khoshtistic/status/1329441181504319496
Prayers were often formulaic, repeated in cryptic form across the interNet temple, often with minor alterations (presumably tailored to fit the individual).
Some adherents from other branches of study found this infuriating and would take to the temple to express their rage.
Some adherents from other branches of study found this infuriating and would take to the temple to express their rage.
Even notable political leaders of the era were known to be adherents of the Cult of the Divine Bird, and some of them seem to have attempted to create their own splinter groups INSIDE THE TEMPLE. It is unclear how the priests of the Divine Bird viewed this behaviour.
The Cult of the Divine Bird arose during times of intense societal inequity, & the temple became a place where adherents could offer pleas for financial aid. Other cultists who were willing & able to do so could answer those calls directly & offer help to their fellow worshippers
The temple was also clearly a place of companionship and solace during the tumultuous second decade of the 21st C. When the Corona Plague was rampant, millions of cultists flocked to the InterNet to express their fear as well as to forge and maintain friendships.
Some touching tributes to lost loved ones remain enshrined in the Temple of the Divine Bird, reminding us that the human spirit remains much the same throughout history, despite wars, plagues, and technological advancements.
Appendix 1: Textual Emendations https://twitter.com/justgrist/status/1329453632199266305
