Delete Post On 4chan

The post was deleted some time on August 13, 2017, a day after the rally ended in the first-degree murder of counter-protester Heather Hayer and the injury of 19 others by white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr.

Notability

Not noteable, IMO a rubbish article. Oberiko 14:21, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Redundant as per Internet slang, I created a redirect. Mr Bound 14:23, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Neoglism almost! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.135.255.187 (talk • contribs) 03:39, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I consider it notable, as I kept seeing these pictures and couldn't figure out what they meant, so that I decided to come to wikipedia to find out; and lo and behold, I get an answer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.65.248.221 (talk • contribs) 13:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Links

It would be nice if people would stop deleting links. Orlyowls.com is just as legitimate as orlyowl.com yet someone keeps deleting the link. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.228.174.223 (talk • contribs) 22:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

This has to be one of the most amusing pictures i've ever seen.. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:{{{2}}} {{{2}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{2}}} talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{2}}} contribs]]) 10:36, 26 November 2005 207.42.160.97 (UTC)

Misc

I'm just popping in to say that this is a perfectly valid page, although it may be worthwhile to condense it and merge it into a general page on internet memes if it's going to stir up all this.

67.86.38.91 18:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm partially responsible for O RLY owl, and I'm expanding the origin to reflect my first-hand account.

The first picture on the page seems to have been replaced. I'm not exactly sure a Stargate character counts as an owl. I'd fix it myself, but I'm not sure how, and the servers seem to have trouble.

O RLY information

We really need to find the original thread at SomethingAwful (or a mirror), maybe with credit to the original author of the image and/or slang itself. I'm still not understanding the rationale behind this or why it is spelled as such (if there is prior art it needs to be noted, as I've never seen or noticed anyone type 'O RLY?' before seeing this image).
Also, what is the justification for an owl saying 'oh really?' (owls seem to make a 'hoo' sound). Of all the internet fads, this one leaves me in the dark for what motivated the person to make this image. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.123.198.38 (talk • contribs) 21:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• I edited the origin section to address this. -- Friendly Anonymous - 69.204.161.157 04:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
• Thank you so much! Your addition is much appreciated. I totally missed the boat on this one, I must be getting old =P —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.123.198.38 (talk • contribs) 18:01, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

The use of 'o rly' first became popular in the SomethingAwful FYAD subforum some time in 2003. I don't think there was an 'original' creation thread because it was one of many memes used in FYAD at the time that followed the theme of removing vowels from phrases whilst keeping them readable. Other 'o rly' style memes in use at the time were things like 'srsly?' and 'ya srsly'. I don't know exactly when the use of 'o rly' moved out of FYAD and into mainstream SomethingAwful (and from there to 4chan). If anyone has SA archives access they can probably search for 'o rly' and find the oldest thread containing it, if it still exists (FYAD threads tend to be deleted a lot). Also, I don't know whether the owl was added by someone in a non-FYAD SomethingAwful forum or by someone on 4chan (or anywhere else). The image itself has nothing to do with FYAD -- indeed, the phrase had pretty much fallen into disuse (read: people that still used it were unceromoniously ostracized) in FYAD by some time in 2004.

I'm partially responsible for O RLY owl, and I'm expanding the origin to reflect my first-hand account.- Anonymous

Cute O RLY owl died in Oct 05?

According to the first linked site on this article (link goes to the subentry as its a blog) the O RLY? owl died on Oct 2005. The entry at that same site though points back to the WP article where there is no mention of this. Does anyone have confirmation or refutation of the winged beast's condition? Flawiki 04:04, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

It's probably referring to the 'death' of the article, when it was protected blank. --SPUI (talk) 12:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

>>personal attack removed<< - Ta bu shi da yu 08:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC) —Original comment was added by User:24.154.77.212 05:42, 25 November 2005

Yes please stop deleting articles like this. They are very helpful. I did not know what O RLY? meant before and now I know. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.247.90.170 (talk • contribs) 09:40, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Too bad it's not about hepfulness, it's about notability. I wouldn't know how O RLY? really fits into 'notableness,' but I've seen plenty of articles get AFD and deleted because they didn't score up enough Google hits or were determined to be fancruft. Hbdragon88 00:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Citation

How is someone supposed to get citation for 4chan's wordfilter? It happened and then it was removed after a few weeks, what, should I get a screen shot of an admin saying, 'yeah that happened'? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.204.161.157 (talk • contribs) 22:17, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Parody link

Interesting and relevant - ergo no need for it to be deleted. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.62.107.64 (talk • contribs) 01:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• The YTMND statistics site shows only around 2000 views. A search on YTMND shows that there are over a half-dozen O RLY pages with more views. This is not notable within the context of the article. Please post a signature when discussing this on the talk page. --DJH47 06:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Animated GIF

I have not seen any other animated GIFs on Wikipedia.. is it really necessary? FCYTravis 03:51, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Aye, noticed the addition of the GIF. Seems rather unecessary since no part of the article refers to it. I'd say take it off. Tom Foolery 04:36, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Maybe just have sitll images instead of the animation. The 'ya rly', at least, should stay.69.114.7.161 02:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

please don't delete

why is this tagged for deletion? i had no idea what this meant, i came to wikipedia and looked it up and BAM there it was. wikipedia is useful once again.

DON'T DELETE!!

-sparsefarce 19 dec 2005

I had the exact same experience. - CTerry 21st Dec 2005

don't delete internet memes are importent -Alexthegreater 19 dec 2005

Agreed, I think this article should remain on Wikipedia. SSJTOM 22:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I wholly support this article. I've seen the 'O RLY?' image everywhere and figured there wouldn't be anything here. But WP has surprised me once again! Why would we get rid of this? It's a well written article about a notable internet meme/fad. Useless Fodder 03:36, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

There really aren't many resources on this topic! This page has been incredibly useful for me.--llamapalooza87 21:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Please don't delete this article -- it's the only way I was able to work out what was going on when I got O RLY?'d in a chatroom.. PeterBrett 17:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

O RLY in other languages

Moved this:

• Danish - NÅH VRKLG? JA VRKLG! (Nåh, virkelig? Ja, virkelig!)
• Dutch - O EGT? JA EGT! (Oh, echt? Ja, echt!)
• English - O RLY? YA RLY! (Oh really? Yeah, really!)
• Finnish - IHA TOS? KYL TOS! (Ihanko totta? Kyllä totta!)
• French - O VRMNT? OUI VRMNT! (Oh vraiment? Oui, vraiment!)
• German - O WRKLK? JA WRKLK! (Oh wirklich? Ja, wirklich!)
• Italian - O DAVVRO? SÌ DAVVRO! (Oh, davvero? Sì, davvero!)
• Spanish - ¿O RLMNT? ¡SÍ RLMNT! (¿Oh realmente? ¡Sí, realmente!) or N SRIO? N SRIO! (¿En serio? ¡En serio!)
• Japanese - SOU DESUKA? (そうですか？）

This is neat section, but it's nonsense. O RLY does not export to other languages this way. None of these things Google. Don't invent things for Wikipedia. JRM · Talk 22:22, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, only the text speak translations don't Google, the normal translations appear in Google, and people do use these in real life. --Kotjze 04:41, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh really? :-) I'd think that goes without saying. Of course the phrase 'oh really' translates, and I have no doubt the translations are in fact correct. But 'oh really' is not O RLY. This has its own page for a reason. JRM · Talk 17:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

The only foreign O RLY? owls I've seen are O Vraiment? (French) and ¿O Rlmente? (Spanish). I've never seen any others. --Evice 06:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

There is also a Greek one (Although it says it's Russian, it's not Russian) http://www.orlyowl.com/russiarly.jpg --Fox Mccloud 21:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

O RLY ASCII

I personally have never seen that ASCII substitute anywhere before, I've seen another substitute posted in several forums, though, and wondering if it was notable. So as not to flood the page, I'll link to an old post I remember at a forum:http://forums.kingdomofloathing.com/viewtopic.php?p=1309087#1309087 --71.139.53.83 11:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

O Rly? Compilation

I added a direct link to the .gif compilation of the original owls. --Shell 18:15, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Can someone dig up the direct link back into the article. It really sums up the humour of the series of image macros. FlameHead 07:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

OrlyCHAIR.gif

What does this have to do with orly? I think a pic of one of the numerous owl variations, or perhaps the yarly owl would do better in its place. Rory096 03:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

'o rly' did not start with the owl. The owl was simply one of numerous image macros made of the phrase by SomethingAwful and 4Chan users and eventually became the most recognizable one because of 4chan's accessibility (SA forums are subscription-only and memes tend to die out there more quickly). Since the title of this article is 'O RLY?' and not 'The O RLY? Owl' then any and all 'o rly' material is relevant.

Even so, most 'O RLY?' images are spawned from something that looks like it could be used with the line, i.e. a facial expression. Just IMO, the chair is pointless and isn't even funny/relevant. -Itamae 02:52, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

It was probably created as a satirical response to the popularity of 'o rly?' image macros. FYAD does not generally create image macros but it's certainly possible that people in GBS or on 4Chan created it and/or found it funny. I've no idea whether it came before or after the owl though or how popular it was on GBS/4Chan. Personally, I don't find it any more or less amusing than the owl because (a) most image macros suck and (b) the joke was dead by 2003. In fact, the entire phrase 'image macro' comes from a scheme made by Lowtax five years ago to stop people overusing them. Some winamp 07:22, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

The chair image should be replaced. It doesn't convey the meaning of 'O RLY?' at all. VegaDark 21:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

VegaDark is right, it has absolutely nothing to do with ORLY and should be replaced. The plane would do nicely. (Also note that both the plane and the owl were created at OffTopic.com, not 4chan or SA) --Rory096 17:42, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

What most non-SA users miss is that the chair is a typical SA-style image macro response to a worn out or overplayed phrase (though plenty of other forums could have spawned the image itself, such as 4Chan). The plane image, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of image macro that represents a worn or played out meme on the SA forums. It is (a) entirely derivative and (b) completely unoriginal, since the only content it adds is derivative. I agree it's a decent example of how O RLY and internet memes in general become overused and gradually lose impact over time, but the chair is just as valid a response to the situation. Some winamp 11:58, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Can someone ressurect the plane image and do a section on the fading of O RLY? I think that's good information. FlameHead 17:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Owls Death

Does anyone have a link/reference for the death of the supposed owl at the San Diego Zoo? Shogun 03:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

http://www.pbreview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=362774. There should be more details with regards to the owl himself RZ heretic 02:36, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Contradiction

In the first section:'On Tuesday, February 7, 2006, the owl (named Jonathan) died at the San Diego Zoo from sudden onset of pneumonia. He was 17 years old.'

Phoenicia std mono font. Phoenica Std Mono 450 Font: Phoenica Std Mono expands the already large family of my very successful Phoenica. The motivation to develop a new mono-Phoe. Phoenica Std Mono expands the already large family of my very successful Phoenica. The motivation to develop a new mono-Phoenica family was that I was not satisfied with monospaced fonts in programming code, or simply in e-mail correspondence. The Mono Phoenica solves the problem of a typical monospaced font, a rigid, fixed width.

In the next section:'Almost inevitably, the identity of the O Rly owl is not known.'

The owls' death report originated from a joke. Still funny though.

- View http://i1.tinypic.com/nl63dl.jpg - I have modified the article to suit. Do not revert. Matgraham 06:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

See my response to this here.Can't sleep, clown will eat me 08:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

One could say that rumours of the O RLY? owl's death are greatly exaggerated. *wink* PeterBrett 17:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of orlyowl.com from External links

I assume it is being done by the orlyowls.com admin. I'll keep re-adding orlyowl.com (the original site - orlyowls being a spin-off) should it be deleted, and log the vandals. James Kendall 22:23, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Within 2 minutes of my edit, user User:66.36.132.32 edited the orlyowl.com to orlyowls.com. James Kendall 23:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

User with a similar IP - User:68.228.174.223 moved orlyowl.com down to second place. Can we assume that this is indeed the orlyowls.com admin? James Kendall [talk] 00:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Screw Whoever Deleted My Addition

What the hell? I freaking contacted the San Diego Zoo to confirm or deny the recent report of his death, and my addition was deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.108.247.69 (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia is not a primary source. Information must be documented in reliable sources elsewhere before it can be put on Wikipedia, and then the source must be cited. Also, please be civil. --Malthusian(talk) 21:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

If you're referring to that post on SuicideGirls, it's clearly a fake. What AP article refers to internet sites like SA, OT and Fark as if everyone in the world would know about them? Rory096 23:40, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

• It's irrelevant info in my opinion, and adds nothing to the article. James Kendall 00:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
• O RLY? Mikemil828 06:58, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• I think having some info on the actual bird is good. Birth/Death dates. And: YA RLY —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.60.11.247 (talk • contribs)
  • It was a hoax. The owl didn't die. Get over it. --Rory096 17:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

The O RLY? owl can't die, end of story.

(The Elfoid 20:57, 15 February 2006 (UTC))

everyday is owl

'Repost' has never been filtered to 'owl'. That little meme has always been done by hand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.222.218.115 (talk • contribs)

I added 'ya rly' to replace the chair and plane earlier

YA RLY is surely notable, and is known. James Kendall [talk] 22:53, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Original research

This article is filled with original research and unsourced claims. I have asked for citations twice, and the requests have been reverted. Why should I believe most of this article is true? --Hamiltonian 17:56, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I say give it a few days. If claims cannot be cited, delete them. James Kendall [talk] 13:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

It's an internet meme, what kind of citation do you want? --Rory096 08:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Everything to do with the SA origin of the phrase and ths start of the photoshopping is available only to people who've registered for the SA forums archives, which costs around $20-30 depending on what parts you register for. It's not possible to link directly to the information in a way that unregistered users can view, which is why I linked to the oldest publicly viewable thread with the phrase (a good 3+ months after the phrase first started being used). Just because the public can't view evidence of origin deosn't mean that origin is uncitable -- I mentioned archives access in the paragraph and that should be citation enough. If you check the SAclopedia on the SA forums (registration required I believe, but archives access NOT required) you can see the users discussing 'o rly' from 2004 onwards (mentioning a Bill O'Reilly image macro of the phrase in 2004) and expressing amaze and/or disdain at the popularity of the owl and how much of a dead horse it is (more or less). I can't provide citation for 4Chan generated content (such as the owl itself) because I don't post of 4Chan. Again, if someone were to cite a book as a primary source they would not be required to link to a complete text of the book as citation. Citing a non-free internet forum should be acceptable even if payment is required to view the primary evidence contained in that forum. Some winamp 11:46, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and removed the citation tags on the SA content section and added a link to the SAclopedia entry in which SA users explain, at the time, the popularity of 'o rly?' image macros in 2004 and the resurgence of 'o rly?' popularity in 2005 even after it had died out on SA. Most Wikipedia users will be unable to view the content of the linked SAclopedia entry because it requires an SA forum account, but since you requested citation, there it is. I would consider the large shared user base and general trickle of memes from SA to 4Chan common knowledge and not worthy of citation on this page -- I believe the relevant information is available on the 4Chan and/or SA pages anyway. Some winamp 11:52, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

James, since you decided to re-add the fact tags to the article that I removed after adding citation, perhaps you could explain which elements of the paragraph you beleive are uncited? I linked to a verifiable primary source that contains SA users' comments on 'o rly' with accurate dates that place the comments well before the popularity of the owl image. SA forums require a fee for a reason, much like purchasing a textbook is necessary to be able to analyze it as a source. To paraphrase, the link provides the following information which I referenced in that paragraph: (a) That the phrase 'o rly?' was widely used on image macros, especially those of Bill O'Reilly, before February 2004 (the date of that post), (b) That the phrase and macros had fallen out of use on the SA forums in early 2004 and (c) that the next mention of the meme in the SAclopedia was a post made in September 2005 talking about the newfound popularity of 'o rly?' outside of SA due to the relatively new owl image. If you aren't more specific about which parts of the information you believe is uncited, I'll go ahead and remove the tags again, because I believe they cover pretty much all of it. I'll also add mention that the link in the article requires registration to view. Some winamp 16:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

The claim of it being popular on 4Chan after dying out on SA. Citation would be a links of it on 4Chan (ie a large discussion or search evidence of 'O RLY' on there) and the same from SA. This would show the popularity on 4Chan compared to SA. Otherwise it's just a statement. James Kendall [talk] 17:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I can't help with 4Chan, but the linked SAclopedia page refers to SA moderators banning anyone that uses 'o rly' or associated image macros in early 2004. Once a catchphrase or meme becomes bannable on SA, its use pretty much stops completely. 4Chan, I think, doesn't keep archives or have a search feature, but since the invention of the owl image is accredited to them and first appears in 2005 can we not infer that 'o rly' must have remained popular on 4Chan at a time far later than 'o rly' became bannable on SA? Of course, that logic only works if the earlier claims in the article of the owl image being created on 4Chan are verifiable. I'll remove that portion for now unless someone from 4Chan can show use of 'o rly' from 2003/4 on through 2005. Some winamp 17:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Correct; 4chan doesn't have archives (though a few people screenshot things that seem like they'd be worth keeping), and /b/ in particular marks posts 'old' after about an hour (and they often get deleted sooner than that, especially if people are flooding the board to hit a milestone or GET). I lurk there, and I remember seeing the O RLY owl showing up on 4chan about a year ago; before then, I hadn't seen it mentioned on 4chan at all. -lee 07:55, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Concerning that alleged AP story about the dead owl, yes, it's a hoax

Take a look at the original:

Took me less than five minutes of Googling to figure out it was just a fix up of the AP's Keiko obit. –Abe Dashiell^(t/c) 22:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

O BLAARGGAG!?

On Planet Zebeth, there was once an interesting O RLY? owl, the O BLAARGGAG!? owl.
I'm not sure if it originated there or not, but it seems to have shown up on YTMND and other sites.
Should it be mentioned?
File:O BLAARGGAG.jpg
--SheeEttin 21:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

xoombot says: Yes! This one did originate on YTMND. It was in that YTMND which had a ton of different O RLY owls at one point and may still be in there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.90.113.228 (talk • contribs)

mme_enigmatique: I don't think that the fangs originated from Predator..looks more like the jaws of Abyss from Soul Calibur III to me.

NO WAI!

I support Jorgemachado's inclusion of 'No wai'. Can't believe it hasn't been added before. James Kendall [talk] 18:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

YA WAI and NO WAI

Both these picture have no licence on them. --Falcorian^(talk) 04:07, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Buttsecks?

The similarly themed companion picture of the white owl with the text 'Buttsecks?,' should also be included, as it is very nearly as common or popular as the original O RLY? owl. CNichols 04:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Concerning the origin.

So what was the reasoning for removing the General Mayhem reference? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.137.83.109 (talk • contribs) 03:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)