The meme centers on a mock roleplay exchange where one character "notices" another character's "bulge" and reacts with the surprised-face emoticon "OwO" followed by the question "what's this?" The "OwO" emoticon uses the letter O for wide eyes and a lowercase W as a small mouth, creating a cutesy surprised expression6. The phrase typically includes asterisk-enclosed action text (like \*nuzzles\* or \*pounces on you\*) that mimics the roleplay formatting common in furry and anime fan communities8.

In practice, the meme works as a trolling device. People drop the phrase into unrelated conversations, comment sections, or message boards to mock the perceived cringe of furry roleplay culture7. The deliberate awkwardness is the point. The "bulge" refers to noticing the outline of a man's crotch, and the exaggerated innocence of "OwO what's this?" plays up the sexual subtext for comedic effect7.

The September 2025 bullet casing revelation forced a niche internet phrase into the global spotlight in a way few memes ever experience. News organizations worldwide had to explain "OwO" to their audiences, creating surreal moments where a state governor read furry catchphrases at a press conference6.

The incident fueled growing discussion about "irony-poisoned" internet culture, where the boundary between joke and sincere belief is deliberately blurred1. *PennLive* reported that research shows extremists can "soft-sell" their ideology through memes, letting algorithms amplify the message, and that meme posters often maintain plausible deniability by packaging hatred as humor2. The use of jokes on bullet casings was read by some analysts as deliberate trolling of law enforcement, designed to be inscrutable to anyone outside internet culture2.

The *Wall Street Journal* initially misreported that the bullet casings were engraved with "transgender...ideology," a characterization not supported by the actual inscriptions1. Major outlets including CNN, BBC, and *Wired* quickly published explainers decoding the references for bewildered readers13.

The furry community, already used to being an internet punchline, found itself at the center of a national news story about political assassination10. The incident raised difficult questions about how law enforcement and the public should interpret meme references found at crime scenes. Cox himself declined to interpret most of the inscriptions, telling reporters, "I will leave that up to you to interpret what those engravings mean"6.

By late 2016, the meme was firmly established as one of the internet's go-to references for mocking furry subculture. But the dynamic between the meme and the furry community was more complicated than simple ridicule. Some furries leaned into the joke, using the phrase ironically as self-aware humor about stereotypes within their own spaces7. The furry community had a history of reclaiming jokes aimed at them, and "OwO what's this?" was no exception7.

Outside furry circles, the phrase became a general-purpose trolling tool. Users dropped it into Discord servers, Twitch chats, and Reddit threads to derail conversations or make people uncomfortable2. The format lent itself to creative remixing. YouTuber Senzawa expanded the meme's reach with a rap song called "Rawr x3 / You So Warm" that wove the phrase into catchy lyrics, bringing it to audiences who'd never encountered furry roleplay in the wild8. Video edits, GIFs, and remixes followed across TikTok, Twitter, and Reddit, each riffing on the original joke.

For most of its life, the meme stayed comfortably in niche internet territory. People who recognized it found it funny or cringey. People who didn't had no reason to learn. That changed overnight on September 10, 2025.

That afternoon, conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah11. Kirk, 31, was killed by a single bullet from a bolt-action rifle fired from a rooftop roughly 142 yards away11. Tyler James Robinson, a 22-year-old from Washington, Utah, was arrested the following day after his father recognized him in FBI wanted photos and urged him to turn himself in12.

During a September 12 press conference, Utah Governor Spencer Cox revealed that investigators had found inscriptions engraved on bullet casings recovered near the rifle6. The fired casing read: "Notices, bulges, OwO what's this?"6. Unfired rounds carried additional messages: "O Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Ciao, ciao" (a reference to the Italian anti-fascist resistance anthem), "if you read this you are gay lmao," and "Hey fascist! Catch!" followed by arrow symbols matching the Eagle 500kg Bomb input code from the video game Helldivers 210.

The revelation sent the phrase trending worldwide. News anchors found themselves explaining furry emoticons on live television. *Reason* described the bullet inscriptions as a "rhetorical mixture of sincerity and sarcasm," fitting a pattern the magazine's Jesse Walker had previously labeled "The Shitpost Terrorist," where real-world violence is paired with ironic internet humor1. Walker compared the practice to "murdering someone while you repeat a *Saturday Night Live* catchphrase"1.

The generational knowledge gap was immediate and wide. Younger internet users in gaming and furry communities recognized the phrase instantly, while older viewers couldn't make sense of the combination of cutesy internet slang and a murder weapon8. As one Reddit commenter put it, the shooter was a "furry porn-addicted post-ironic Groyper gun nut"8. Robinson's precise political affiliations proved difficult to categorize. While some inscriptions appeared anti-fascist, he was also rumored to have connections to the far-right "Groyper" community, which uses meme culture as a communication tool7.

Robinson's family had noticed him becoming more political in the months before the shooting. At a family dinner, he had mentioned Kirk's upcoming appearance at UVU and discussed "why they didn't like him and the viewpoints that he had"6. Governor Cox said Robinson was radicalized "in a fairly short amount of time" but offered few details13.