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All Hail Flappy BiBird

Guess who’s back to save the popular app?

by
Liel Leibovitz
February 18, 2014
(Flappy BiBird)
(Flappy BiBird)

Flappy Bird is the stuff app store dreams are made of: developed by a young Vietnamese designer named Dong Nguyen, the devilishly difficult game—involving a bird striving to fly through a set of pipes without touching anything—went on to become a pop culture phenomenon, earning $50,000 per day before Nguyen, citing the game’s highly addictive potential, decided to cease production, creating a robust black market for Flappy Bird knock-offs.

Google, Apple, and the other masters of the digital domain are cracking down on these fake Flappies, but a new Israeli game may change their mind: Flappy BiBird, which replaces the avian hero with the confident-looking mug of a certain silver-haired prime minister.

If you haven’t played the original game, or if you’re entertained by Israeli politics and like to think of the pipes the BiBird has to clear as metaphors for Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, there’s no better way to spend a snowy Tuesday.

Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.