A purple, head-banging bird is everywhere now. It's on Facebook, YouTube, in the comments on New York Times stories and even in texts. The popular pigeon has almost become a meme monster.

The bird is the creation of illustrator and visual development artist Syd Weiler after some unexpected inspiration, reports Mashable.

Weiler said she got the idea while visiting Minneapolis. "I was sitting by a pond ... and there were just pigeons everywhere," she said. "I had never thought about pigeons before. They're funny little birds. They have really shiny, colorful, almost rainbow-y feathers, but then they bob around and waddle and beg for food. They're like doves but they eat trash" Mashable quotes Weiler as saying.

She made the images of the bird, available on iOS 10, last year, creating them digitally based on her original drawings. She even streamed the creation live on Twitch.TV, where she's a "full-time creative streamer," creating art in front of viewers daily which, Weiler said, is "like monetising a YouTube channel." 

Then at the end of January, the stickers hit Facebook, fueling their popularity, especially on the other side of the world.

It seems that ground zero for Trash Dove's explosion, according to Know Your Meme, was its appearance in an animated video produced in Thailand which featured the head-banging Trash Dove dancing next to an animated cat which takes an unexpected and adult turn.

Weiler was taken by surprise. "I woke up... and everyone was tagging me and sending me these Thai news articles that I couldn't read but had my picture on them" she tells Mashable.

The stickers have made their mark across Facebook, even, as noted by The Verge, invading Facebook comment sections of sites like Vox and The New York Times.

Weiler, though, is focusing on the joy her creation brings to fans, rather than the more unsavory turns. 

"[The trash doves] were made to make people laugh and make people happy," she says. "I'm really glad people like them. I'm really glad they make people smile and seeing the fan art and all the nice comments has been really, really nice."



Source: Mashable