Obituary

O RLY? was a photograph of a snowy owl, head swiveled toward the camera with an expression of pure, dismissive skepticism, captioned in a monospace font: 'O RLY?' It was one of the very first image memes, a pre-YouTube relic passed around forums and email forwards, the ancestor of every skeptical reaction image that followed. The owl asked its question, the internet answered with 'YA RLY,' and for two years the two phrases were a complete philosophical system. It died in 2006, before the word 'meme' meant what it means now. It is the proof that this cemetery is older than you think.

Born

2004

Died

2006

Cause of death

Died of a question nobody answered

Last sighting

A defunct image board, 2006

Resting place

Section Z, Row 11 — the ancestral plot

Category

animal