ViralWorld

2003·Early web, before YouTube

O RLY?

You might remember it as YA RLY, orly owl

No copy of this image is currently available to show.

  • SourceNo single original
  • MediaNot held by ViralWorld

A snowy owl, two words, and the template for saying you do not believe someone.

The story

What this was

A photograph of a snowy owl captioned O RLY?, from Something Awful and 4chan, with the replies YA RLY and NO WAI. One of the first image macros to become a conversational move rather than a joke.

It first appeared in 2003, during early web, before YouTube.

The same internet

Early web, before YouTube

What we know

Where it came from

There is no original to identify: this spread through many separate posts at once rather than from a first one. ViralWorld holds no copy of it either — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is the record.

Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this, because research established there was not one — it appeared in many places at once.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

What happens
A photograph of a snowy owl captioned O RLY?, from Something Awful and 4chan, with the replies YA RLY and NO WAI. One of the first image macros to become a conversational move rather than a joke.
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