The phrase "O RLY?" was first popularised on Internet forums in mid-2003. For example, the archives of the Something Awful Forums show that it was used quite often there in 2003.
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 word filtering of the word "repost" to "owl"[1]. 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 Offtopic, 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.[citation needed]
)
