O RLY?

This article is about the Internet slang expression. For the French town, see Orly.

File:Orlypaper.jpg

As featured in The Independent Tiger Weekly.

O RLY?, short for "Oh, really?" is a popular Internet phenomenon, typically presented as an image macro. The usual conversation flow starts with O RLY?, triggering a YA RLY ("Yeah, really") response, and then ending with NO WAI!!! ("No way").

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 TL;DR).

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 wordfiltering of the word "repost" to "owl". 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 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.

Variations

There are innumerous variations of the "O RLY?" phrase, including many puns and other jokes. Some include

• "O WILLY" (with an image from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, making fun of star Will Smith) [1]
• "The O RLY? Factor" (a parody of The O'Reilly Factor, the first of these would focus on O' Reilly himself , whereas later parodies dressed the owl in O' Reilly's signature suit) [2]
• "BOB MRLY" (a tribute to legendary reggae singer Bob Marley) [3]
• A stereotypically French owl with a beret and moustache reading "O vraiment?", "vraiment" meaning "really" or "truly" in French. [4]
• "O WIILY" (with an image of an owl in a Mario hat, holding a Nintendo Wii controller), posted on Nintelligent News Network. [5]

For a more complete list, see [6].

In popular culture

• In the Everquest 2 expansion entitled EverQuest II: Kingdom of Sky, there are two owls named ORLY and YARLY sitting high on a chain in the Barren Sky zone.
• In World of Warcraft, there are auctioneers named "O'Reely", found stood on a stack of crates by the bank in Booty Bay, and "Yarly" found on the lower floors of the leather workers structure in the Undercity. Also in World of Warcraft there is an owl in the Tanaris Desert called "O'Reily".
• In one episode of the G4 program X-Play, Adam Sessler, in the role of a pilot, blurts out "Oh, really?" to a rival pilot named Goose after he lays down a challenge in a skit during Morgan Webb's review of Battle of Europe (2006).
• In the Internet short film series Pure Pwnage, episode 10, the character Jeremy in mid-argument with his girlfriend says "Do you know how many girls would love to bring their PCs over to my place?" and she replies "O RLY?" and he responds "YA RLY!"
• In the game MegaMan Battle Network 6, one of MegaMan.Exe's possible joke responses when talking to him in Central Town's Cyber Academy, (with the Humor program installed), is that both he and Lan Hikari say "O Rly?" and "Ya rly", as part of a joke.
• In the MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing, there is a familiar (A creature who follows you around and attacks enemies) called a Snowy Owl, which is "hatched" from a Sleeping Snowy Owl. Highlighting the description of the Sleeping Snowy Owl yields a hidden "O RLY?".
• Recently debuted as a costume at Otakon 2006 in Baltimore. [7]

O RLY? ASCII art

ASCII art versions of the O RLY? image macro were also created.

___ {o,o} |)__) -"-"- O RLY?

___ {o.o} |)_(| -"-"- YA RLY

___ {o,o} (__(| -"-"- NO WAI!

Worm

On May 10, 2006 anti-virus company Sophos discovered a computer worm called W32/Hoots-A, which sends a graphical image of the snowy owl to a print queue when it infects a computer.

The worm spread through network shares, and was created specifically for one company. Sophos has labeled the occurrence as a singular event that will not spread outside the target. It is believed to have been an "inside job" targeted specifically at one company using a detailed knowledge of their print queues.

External links

• Gallery including original concept
• O rly Owl Spinoff site, with hundreds of variations