Small Big Bird

Overview

Small Big Bird, also known as Tiny Big Bird or Little Big Bird, refers to a mysterious social media campaign in which the character Big Bird from Sesame Street, normally taller than an average human, tweeted that it had drastically shrunk and continued to do so for a week in late January 2024. The tweets drew the attention of the wider internet, with some jokingly raising alarm about Big Bird's shrunken size and criticizing other Sesame Street characters for not aiding Big Bird.

Background

On January 24th, 2024, the official account for Big Bird tweeted^[1] that it had shrunk, asking, "Uh oh! Does anyone know how to make me big Big Bird again?" The tweet gained over 2,200 retweets and 11,000 likes (shown below).

The screenshot Big Bird used in its tweet and subsequent tweets comes from the Sesame Street episode "The Adventures of Little Big Bird," a two-part episode that aired on December 29th, 2005.^[2]

Developments

Over the following six days, Big Bird continued to tweet that he was still small and wanted to become big again (example tweets shown below).

Other Sesame Street characters joined in on the campaign on Twitter as it continued. For example, on January 29th, 2024, the account for Elmo ^[3] posted an entreaty for everyone on the site to wish for Big Bird to be big again, gaining over 250 retweets and 3,900 likes in one day (shown below, left).

On January 25th, the account for Bert ^[4] tweeted that the Sesame Street cast was working on it, gaining over 30 retweets and 490 likes in five days (shown below, right).

Online Reactions

Online, some users hyperbolically expressed despair and alarm at Big Bird's new small stature. On January 25th, 2024, Twitter user @jzux^[5] joked that they couldn't come to work because they needed to fix Big Bird, gaining over 9,500 retweets and 130,000 likes in five days (shown below, left).

On January 28th, Twitter user @NickMillerMusic^[6] joked as if he were a character played by Jesse Plemons looking into the case, gaining over 20 retweets and 360 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References