Waiting for OP

About

“Waiting for OP” and “OP will surely deliver”, are expressions associated with image macros featuring people, animals or skeletons posed in front of computer screens as if they had been waiting for the original poster’s response for a very long time. It is often used in threads to warn posters of the futility of tracking a topic where the origin poster (OP) has promised to provide evidence to support a story or claim.

Origin

The phrase “waiting for OP” was used in the Democratic Underground^[1] Forums as early as March 3rd, 2005. On December 29th, 2009, the earliest known image macro to use the phrase “OP will surely deliver” featuring a reclined skeleton (shown below) was uploaded to the image-hosting site Chan4Chan.^[2]

Spread

On July 4th, 2010, a page titled “Waiting For OP” was created on the image macro site Meme Generator,^[6] featuring a picture of a skeleton sitting on a bench (shown below, left). On May 16th, 2011, a Quickmeme^[5] page titled “OP Will Surely Deliver” was launched, featuring an image of a cat waiting for food (shown below, middle) and a skeleton sitting at a computer (shown below, right).

On August 5th, 2012, a Facebook^[3] page titled “OP Will Surely Deliver” was launched. On November 20th, Redditor the 2belo submitted a post titled “OP will surely deliver. Lets just wait” to the /r/skyrim^[4] subreddit, featuring a screenshot of a skeleton sitting on a throne from the 2011 role-playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (shown below, left).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Search queries for “waiting for op” had a brief spike in January of 2008, before picking back up in October that year. Search queries for “op deliver” began increasing in January of 2010.

External Links