ZOMG TEH O RLY? FACTOR!!! (Introducing a new common-use Parodyverse character)



“WELCUM 2 TEH O RLY? FACTOR I R BEAK O RLY? LOL!!!” screeched the owl-headed, suit-wearing … thing, that Visionary was terrified to see on his television.

“HALLIE!” Vizh yelled in alarm, before noticing the network ID in the corner of the screen and wondering aloud, “Who changed the channel to FOX News?”

“What’s wrong, Vizh?” Hallie materialized in a cascade of pixels, before she spotted what he was staring at. “What are you watching?” she blinked in confusion.

“TONITE IN TEH NO-SPIN ZONE LIE-BRALS R TEH SUXXORZ FEMINAZIS FAGGOTRY LOL!!!” Beak O’Rly? informed his audience, in ear-splitting shrieks that made Vizh and Hallie wince.

“Hallie?” April Alice Apple checked, as she ducked her head into the room. “Is everything okay? You just kind of … disappeared on us, in mid-chat.”

“Is that the O’Reilly Factor?” Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove distinguished with disdain, as he followed April into the living room and glanced at the TV. “Since when did Bill become a Furry, though?”

“STFU AND LURK MOAR SPIDER EXPERT!!!” O’Rly? shouted at one of his guests, angrily flapping suit-clad arms that looked like anthropomorphized wings.

“That’s … just not right!” Vizh protested, instinctively sensing the innate wrongness in the existence of this character.

“You’re right,” Hallie realized, with a growing sense of guilt. “I recognize the data patterns. I converted the Earth from material to digital and back again, twice over, and during one of those translations … something must have gotten corrupted. I did this.”

“You were a virtual reality Atlas, literally shouldering the weight of the world,” April reminded Hallie. “Besides, everything else seems to have survived the conversion intact, so …”

Dream suddenly burst into a brief fit of braying laughter, as he studied the political talk show hosting owl. When everyone else turned to stare at him questioningly, he rolled his eyes at them for not getting the gag. “Come on! Bill O’Reilly? The ‘O RLY?’ owl?”

April’s shoulders slumped as she buried her face in her hands. “Oh, God,” she groaned.

“WHAT?” Vizh demanded, in no mood for more than the Cliff’s Notes.

“‘O RLY?’ is an Internet meme,” Hallie sighed, shaking her head in disbelief. “Whenever someone posts something that’s considered either stupid or obvious, someone else will inevitably reply with an image macro of an owl who looks like he’s saying, ‘O RLY?’”

“There are all sorts of variations on it,” April elaborated. “In fact, a lot of them shop the ‘O RLY?’ owl into screencaps for the O’Reilly Factor …”

“So, Hallie confused a right-wing talking head with an online running joke?” Vizh shrugged. “Anyone could have made that mistake, so it’s hardly fair to hold her accountable for fusing them together … even if the result is an abomination on a par with The Fly. But … if one half of him is supposed to be Bill O’Reilly, then why did he say his first name was ‘Beak?’”

“Because owls have beaks, not bills,” Dream delivered the pun in a deadpan voice.

“TITS OR GTFO!!!” Beak O’Rly? screamed, as he took flight and tried to tear his female guest’s blouse off with his talons.

“You could actually make a case that this is way better than the way he used to treat women,” April snorted, before responding to Hallie’s skeptically cocked eyebrow. “Hey, I’d rather an owl try to claw my boobs than Bill O’Reilly try to phone-sexxor me by talking about loofahs and falafels.”

“And once again, the media has elevated the level of civic and cultural discourse in this country,” Dream grinned.

If you had to blame Hallie for creating a parody of Bill O'Reilly, why couldn't you credit her with Steven Colbert?

This one really needed Rod Serling to step out at the end and deliver a chilling warning of what might come from the fusion of 24-hour news with the immediacy of the internet.

Hilarious.

Erfworld is the place I first heard about this meme. That's after more time than I like to remember using the Internet.

I would have needed that explanation!

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