Yerevan started May Day with a small civic emergency. A zebra, free and unsupervised, was clopping down Myasnikyan Avenue at six in the morning. Police rolled out, emergency services rolled out, citizens filmed, the zoo’s switchboard lit up. Then someone walked closer. Then someone got the photographs into focus. Then the Yerevan Zoo issued a statement that read, in essence, the zebras are fine, that is a donkey, and please stop calling. The donkey had been painted. Black and white stripes, applied by an unidentified citizen, walked into the middle of one of the busiest streets in the Armenian capital so its owner could shoot a video. Pudgy Cat has covered people rigging weather markets with hairdressers’ hairdryers at Paris airports , and we have covered a Berlin couple turning a 3×3 photo grid into a global TikTok trend , but this one might be the purest example of a 2026 viral playbook we have ever logged. Step one, take a regular animal. Step two, lie about it visually.…