O RLY?

About

O RLY is internet slang for “OH REALLY?” with implicit sarcasm. Since gaining traction through with usage on Internet forums, O RLY has become a popular deadpan response to any statement that is deemed either highly doubtful or obviously true.

Origin

The original “O RLY?” Snowy Owl image macro used a photo taken by nature photographer John White, which was subsequently posted to a Usenet newsgroup named alt.binaries.pictures.animals ^[1] in 2001. White has since sent numerous cease and desist letters^[2] to those using the image without his permission. The captioned image “O RLY?” originated cira 2003 on the Something Awful forums, where it was used as a deadpan response to anything you found doubtful, unimpressive or just plain dull.

Spread

In the spring of 2005, the O RLY phenomenon reached the anonymous community 4chan^[3], where the phrase was paired with White’s incredulous-looking snowy owl for the first time. The popularity of the snowy owl image macros reached its peak when one of the 4chan moderators implemented a wordfilter script that replaced all mentions of “repost”--an overused 4chan term referring to duplicate content--with the word “owl,” provoking users to respond by uploading owl image macros with text reading: “every day is owl day.”

Every day is repost day. -->
Every day is owl day.

Computer Virus

In May 2006, anti-virus company Sophos discovered a computer worm known as “W32/Hoots-A”, which sends an image of the snowy owl to a print queue when it infects a Windows-based computer. A Sophos spokesman said that it appeared that the virus, written in Visual Basic, was not written by a professional, but that: “it appears this malware was written for a specific organization, by someone who had inside knowledge of their IT infrastructure.” ^[4]

Image Derivatives

External References