O RLY?
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- This article is about the Internet slang expression. For the French town, see Orly.
O RLY?, short for "Oh, really?" is a popular Internet phenomenon, typically presented as an image macro featuring a snowy owl. The usual conversation flow starts with O RLY?, triggering a YA RLY ("Yeah, really") response, and then ending with NO WAI!!! ("No way"). There are many additional shortened words that can follow.
The phrase "O RLY?" is typically used in a sarcastic or sardonic manner: it may be used to mock AOL speak or indicate that the original post was blatantly obvious. One may also troll by posting O RLY? in response to a lengthy post. (see also TLDR).
Origin
The phrase "O RLY?" was first popularised on Internet forums in mid-2003. The earliest publicly viewable archives of its use on the Something Awful Forums date from somewhat later, but there are older uses in the registration-only archives. The first image macros were created on the Something Awful Forums, but these did not include the now ubiquitous Snowy Owl image macro.
The original O RLY Snowy Owl image macro is based on a photo taken by nature photographer John White, which was posted by him to the newsgroup alt.binaries.pictures.animals. The snowy owl image macro was Photoshopped on 4chan as a response to the word filtering of the word "repost" to "owl"[1]. The typeface used for the "O RLY?" text is most likely Kabel Book, a variant of the Kabel typeface introduced in the 1920s. The owl image macro quickly spread to other websites such as Offtopic, Fark and YTMND, spawning many more image macros involving owls. The frequent posting of the O RLY? owl has annoyed some webmasters to the point that the posting of it on some message boards will result in a user ban.
O RLY? ASCII art
ASCII art versions of the O RLY? image macro were also created.
___
{o,o}
|)__)
-"-"-
O RLY?
|
___
{o.-}
|)_(|
-"-"-
YA RLY
|
___
{0,0}
(__(|
-"-"-
NO WAI!
|
Worm
On May 10, 2006, anti-virus company Sophos discovered a computer worm known as "W32/Hoots-A", which sends a graphical image of the snowy owl to a print queue when it infects a computer.[2][3]
References
- ^ 4chan word filter thread
- ^ Staff Writers (2006-05-12). "Sophos discovers hooting virus". crn.com.au.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Unknown parameter|accessmonthday=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ "Crazy owl preys on network printers, Sophos reports on Hoots worm". sophos.com. 2006-05-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Unknown parameter|accessmonthday=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help)
External links
- Gallery including original concept
- www.orlyowl.com
- ORLY plush toy