I Was Bitten By A Turtle When I Was A Young Lad

2008Copypasta / troll questiondead

Also known as: Turtle Bite Orange Juice · Bitten By a Turtle

I Was Bitten By A Turtle When I Was A Young Lad is a 2008 Yahoo! Answers copypasta that absurdly conflates a childhood turtle bite with orange juice safety in folksy, medically nonsensical terms.

"I Was Bitten By a Turtle When I Was a Young Lad" is a copypasta originating from a deliberately absurd Yahoo! Answers question posted in 2008. The question asks whether it's safe to drink orange juice after being bitten by a turtle as a child, a connection so nonsensical it became a recurring troll post across the platform for nearly a decade. The joke's staying power comes from its folksy delivery and the complete lack of any medical relationship between turtle bites and citrus.

yahoo answers memescopypasta memestrolling memesabsurdist humor memeslate 2000s memes

Overview

The meme centers on a single Yahoo! Answers post that reads: "I was bitten by a turtle when I was a young lad, should I still drink orange juice?" The poster, going by the username Tuggy, added extra detail in the question's body: "I need to know ya'll. I love to drink that dang OJ. It be tasting very good to me"4. The humor works on multiple levels. The question implies some kind of medical link between a childhood turtle bite and orange juice consumption, which obviously doesn't exist. The folksy Southern-inflected writing style ("ya'll," "that dang OJ," "it be tasting very good to me") adds a layer of character that makes the post feel like a fully committed bit rather than a lazy troll.

The question became a template for repeated trolling on Yahoo! Answers, with users copying and reposting it verbatim for years.

On September 1, 2008, a Yahoo! Answers user named Tuggy submitted the question to the platform5. Given the absurd premise and deliberate folksy tone, the post was almost certainly a troll4. Yahoo! Answers at the time was a magnet for this kind of comedy, where users would pose ridiculous questions hoping to bait sincere responses or simply entertain other readers. Tuggy's post stood out because of its specific, quotable phrasing and the bizarre internal logic of connecting a turtle bite to orange juice safety.

Origin & Background

Platform
Yahoo! Answers
Creator
Yahoo! Answers user "Tuggy"
Date
2008

On September 1, 2008, a Yahoo! Answers user named Tuggy submitted the question to the platform. Given the absurd premise and deliberate folksy tone, the post was almost certainly a troll. Yahoo! Answers at the time was a magnet for this kind of comedy, where users would pose ridiculous questions hoping to bait sincere responses or simply entertain other readers. Tuggy's post stood out because of its specific, quotable phrasing and the bizarre internal logic of connecting a turtle bite to orange juice safety.

How It Spread

The question quickly took on a life of its own as a repost staple. Other Yahoo! Answers users copied the exact text and submitted it as their own question dozens of times over the following years. The repetition itself became part of the joke, turning the question into one of the platform's most recognizable recurring trolls.

On December 29, 2010, the musician Owl City shared the question on his Facebook page, bringing it to a wider audience outside the Yahoo! Answers ecosystem. The post also appeared in roundups of the best dumb Yahoo! Answers questions. Complex included it in their compilation of funny Yahoo! Answers posts, and PC World featured it in a similar list that was later referenced by the blog St. Eutychus. The St. Eutychus post highlighted a particularly memorable joke answer to the question: "No! If you drink orange juice now, it will activate the turtle venom in your veins and send you into a coma. Didn't anyone ever tell you this before?"

By 2017, the question was still being reposted on Yahoo! Answers, though the novelty had worn thin. One commenter on a March 2017 repost wrote: "can't believe anyone is still trying to troll with this old, unoriginal 'question'. This has been posted at least once a week for years". The copypasta's run effectively ended with the shutdown of Yahoo! Answers in 2021, which removed the platform where most of its life played out.

How to Use This Meme

The meme is typically used in one of two ways:

- Direct repost: Copy and paste the original question verbatim into a Q&A platform, forum, or comment section. The humor comes from the absurdity of the question appearing out of context, and from other users recognizing (or failing to recognize) it as a classic troll post. - Humorous response: When the question appears, users often play along with deadpan answers that treat the premise as medically legitimate. The "turtle venom" response is the most well-known example of this approach.

The format doesn't lend itself to remixing the way image macros do. Its comedy is locked into the specific wording and the specific absurd premise.

Cultural Impact

The turtle bite question belongs to a broader category of Yahoo! Answers trolling that defined a particular era of internet humor in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Sites like Complex and PC World built entire listicles around the platform's most ridiculous questions, and Tuggy's post regularly appeared alongside other Yahoo! Answers hall-of-famers. Owl City signal-boosting the question to their Facebook following in 2010 marked one of the earlier examples of a musician sharing meme content with fans as a form of casual engagement.

The meme also illustrates how Yahoo! Answers functioned as an unintentional comedy platform. The site's lack of quality filters and the earnest framing of its Q&A format made it a perfect stage for absurdist trolling.

Fun Facts

The question was reposted so frequently that by 2017, regular Yahoo! Answers users were openly complaining about seeing it "at least once a week for years".

There is, of course, no medical connection between turtle bites and orange juice consumption. Turtles are not venomous.

Owl City (the musician behind "Fireflies") posted the question on Facebook in 2010, making it one of the earlier instances of a mainstream musician sharing copypasta content.

The "turtle venom" joke answer became nearly as iconic as the question itself, spawning its own minor tradition of escalating fake medical warnings.

Frequently Asked Questions

I Was Bitten By A Turtle When I Was A Young Lad

2008Copypasta / troll questiondead

Also known as: Turtle Bite Orange Juice · Bitten By a Turtle

I Was Bitten By A Turtle When I Was A Young Lad is a 2008 Yahoo! Answers copypasta that absurdly conflates a childhood turtle bite with orange juice safety in folksy, medically nonsensical terms.

"I Was Bitten By a Turtle When I Was a Young Lad" is a copypasta originating from a deliberately absurd Yahoo! Answers question posted in 2008. The question asks whether it's safe to drink orange juice after being bitten by a turtle as a child, a connection so nonsensical it became a recurring troll post across the platform for nearly a decade. The joke's staying power comes from its folksy delivery and the complete lack of any medical relationship between turtle bites and citrus.

yahoo answers memes copypasta memes trolling memes absurdist humor memes late 2000s memes

Overview

The meme centers on a single Yahoo! Answers post that reads: "I was bitten by a turtle when I was a young lad, should I still drink orange juice?" The poster, going by the username Tuggy, added extra detail in the question's body: "I need to know ya'll. I love to drink that dang OJ. It be tasting very good to me". The humor works on multiple levels. The question implies some kind of medical link between a childhood turtle bite and orange juice consumption, which obviously doesn't exist. The folksy Southern-inflected writing style ("ya'll," "that dang OJ," "it be tasting very good to me") adds a layer of character that makes the post feel like a fully committed bit rather than a lazy troll.

The question became a template for repeated trolling on Yahoo! Answers, with users copying and reposting it verbatim for years.

On September 1, 2008, a Yahoo! Answers user named Tuggy submitted the question to the platform. Given the absurd premise and deliberate folksy tone, the post was almost certainly a troll. Yahoo! Answers at the time was a magnet for this kind of comedy, where users would pose ridiculous questions hoping to bait sincere responses or simply entertain other readers. Tuggy's post stood out because of its specific, quotable phrasing and the bizarre internal logic of connecting a turtle bite to orange juice safety.

Origin & Background

Platform
Yahoo! Answers
Creator
Yahoo! Answers user "Tuggy"
Date
2008

On September 1, 2008, a Yahoo! Answers user named Tuggy submitted the question to the platform. Given the absurd premise and deliberate folksy tone, the post was almost certainly a troll. Yahoo! Answers at the time was a magnet for this kind of comedy, where users would pose ridiculous questions hoping to bait sincere responses or simply entertain other readers. Tuggy's post stood out because of its specific, quotable phrasing and the bizarre internal logic of connecting a turtle bite to orange juice safety.

How It Spread

The question quickly took on a life of its own as a repost staple. Other Yahoo! Answers users copied the exact text and submitted it as their own question dozens of times over the following years. The repetition itself became part of the joke, turning the question into one of the platform's most recognizable recurring trolls.

On December 29, 2010, the musician Owl City shared the question on his Facebook page, bringing it to a wider audience outside the Yahoo! Answers ecosystem. The post also appeared in roundups of the best dumb Yahoo! Answers questions. Complex included it in their compilation of funny Yahoo! Answers posts, and PC World featured it in a similar list that was later referenced by the blog St. Eutychus. The St. Eutychus post highlighted a particularly memorable joke answer to the question: "No! If you drink orange juice now, it will activate the turtle venom in your veins and send you into a coma. Didn't anyone ever tell you this before?"

By 2017, the question was still being reposted on Yahoo! Answers, though the novelty had worn thin. One commenter on a March 2017 repost wrote: "can't believe anyone is still trying to troll with this old, unoriginal 'question'. This has been posted at least once a week for years". The copypasta's run effectively ended with the shutdown of Yahoo! Answers in 2021, which removed the platform where most of its life played out.

How to Use This Meme

The meme is typically used in one of two ways:

- Direct repost: Copy and paste the original question verbatim into a Q&A platform, forum, or comment section. The humor comes from the absurdity of the question appearing out of context, and from other users recognizing (or failing to recognize) it as a classic troll post. - Humorous response: When the question appears, users often play along with deadpan answers that treat the premise as medically legitimate. The "turtle venom" response is the most well-known example of this approach.

The format doesn't lend itself to remixing the way image macros do. Its comedy is locked into the specific wording and the specific absurd premise.

Cultural Impact

The turtle bite question belongs to a broader category of Yahoo! Answers trolling that defined a particular era of internet humor in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Sites like Complex and PC World built entire listicles around the platform's most ridiculous questions, and Tuggy's post regularly appeared alongside other Yahoo! Answers hall-of-famers. Owl City signal-boosting the question to their Facebook following in 2010 marked one of the earlier examples of a musician sharing meme content with fans as a form of casual engagement.

The meme also illustrates how Yahoo! Answers functioned as an unintentional comedy platform. The site's lack of quality filters and the earnest framing of its Q&A format made it a perfect stage for absurdist trolling.

Fun Facts

The question was reposted so frequently that by 2017, regular Yahoo! Answers users were openly complaining about seeing it "at least once a week for years".

There is, of course, no medical connection between turtle bites and orange juice consumption. Turtles are not venomous.

Owl City (the musician behind "Fireflies") posted the question on Facebook in 2010, making it one of the earlier instances of a mainstream musician sharing copypasta content.

The "turtle venom" joke answer became nearly as iconic as the question itself, spawning its own minor tradition of escalating fake medical warnings.

Frequently Asked Questions