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including original concept {{DEFAULTSORT:O Rly Fictional owls Internet slang Animals on the Internet Internet memes introduced in 2003 2003 neologisms de:Liste von Abkürzungen (Netzjargon)#O fr:Liste de termes d'argot Internet#mno
O RLY? is an Internet phenomenon
An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...
, typically presented as an image macro
An image macro is a piece of digital media featuring a picture, or artwork, with some form of text superimposed. The text frequently appears at the top and bottom of the image. Image macros are one of the most common forms of internet memes, an ...
featuring a snowy owl
The snowy owl (''Bubo scandiacus''), also known as the polar owl, the white owl and the Arctic owl, is a large, white owl of the true owl family. Snowy owls are native to the Arctic regions of both North America and the Palearctic, breeding mos ...
. The phrase "O RLY?", an abbreviated form of "Oh, really?", is popularly used in Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
s in a sarcastic
Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection ...
manner, often in response to an obvious, predictable, or blatantly false statement. Similar owl image macros followed the original to present different views, including images with the phrases "YA RLY" (Yeah, really.), "NO WAI!!" (No way!), and NO RLY. (Not really.)
History
Outside of Internet forums, O RLY? has been referenced in variousvideo game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s, including ''World of Warcraft
''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...
'' in which the auctioneer characters O’Reely and Yarly are a reference to "O RLY?" and "YA RLY!", respectively.
Hoots computer worm
In 2006, anti-virus companySophos
Sophos Group plc is a British based security software and hardware company. Sophos develops products for communication endpoint, encryption, network security, email security, mobile security and unified threat management. Sophos is primarily ...
discovered a computer worm
A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It wil ...
known as "W32/Hoots-A", which sends a graphical image of a snowy owl with the letters "O RLY?" to a print queue
In computing, a print job is a file or set of files that has been submitted to be printed with a printer.
Jobs are typically identified by a unique number, and are assigned to a particular destination, usually a printer. Jobs can also have options ...
when it infects a Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
-based computer. A Sophos spokesman said that it appeared that the virus, written in Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to:
* Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET
* Visual Basic (cl ...
, 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."
Parodies
O’Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of a ...
's book covers on programming and technology have been parodied online using the term O RLY?, first popularised by a meme
A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...
generator by Ben Halpern.
See also
*Lolcat
A lolcat (pronounced ), or LOLcat, is an image macro of one or more cats. Lolcat images' idiosyncratic and intentionally grammatically incorrect text is known as lolspeak.
Lolcat is a compound word of the acronymic abbreviation LOL (laugh out ...
References
External links
O RLY? Gallery
including original concept {{DEFAULTSORT:O Rly Fictional owls Internet slang Animals on the Internet Internet memes introduced in 2003 2003 neologisms de:Liste von Abkürzungen (Netzjargon)#O fr:Liste de termes d'argot Internet#mno