# I Was Bitten By A Turtle When I Was A Young Lad > 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. ## Origin On September 1, 2008, a Yahoo! Answers user named Tuggy submitted the question to the platform[5]. Given the absurd premise and deliberate folksy tone, the post was almost certainly a troll[4]. 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. - **Platform:** Yahoo! Answers - **Creator:** Yahoo! Answers user "Tuggy" (original poster) - **Date:** 2008 ## 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. ## 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[4]. 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[4]. The post also appeared in roundups of the best dumb Yahoo! Answers questions. Complex included it in their compilation of funny Yahoo! Answers posts[1], and PC World featured it in a similar list that was later referenced by the blog St. Eutychus[3]. 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?"[3] 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"[2]. 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 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[3]. 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[1] and PC World[3] 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[4]. 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"[2]. - There is, of course, no medical connection between turtle bites and orange juice consumption. Turtles are not venomous[3]. - 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[4]. - The "turtle venom" joke answer became nearly as iconic as the question itself, spawning its own minor tradition of escalating fake medical warnings[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is "I Was Bitten By a Turtle When I Was a Young Lad"? It's a copypasta originating from a Yahoo! Answers question posted in 2008 that asks whether it's safe to drink orange juice after being bitten by a turtle as a child. The absurd lack of connection between the two made it a popular troll post[4]. ### Where did "I Was Bitten By a Turtle When I Was a Young Lad" come from? Yahoo! Answers user Tuggy posted the original question on September 1, 2008[5]. It was almost certainly a deliberate troll post[4]. ### What does "I Was Bitten By a Turtle When I Was a Young Lad" mean? The question doesn't have a real meaning. The humor comes from implying a medical relationship between turtle bites and orange juice that doesn't exist, delivered in an earnest folksy tone[4]. ### How do you use "I Was Bitten By a Turtle When I Was a Young Lad"? The traditional use is copying and pasting the exact question into a Q&A forum or comment section. Responses typically play along with fake medical advice, like the famous "turtle venom" answer[3]. ### Is "I Was Bitten By a Turtle When I Was a Young Lad" still popular? No. The meme was most active between 2008 and 2017 on Yahoo! Answers[2]. The platform shut down in 2021, effectively ending the copypasta's primary habitat. ### Who is Tuggy? Tuggy is the Yahoo! Answers username of the person who posted the original question on September 1, 2008. No real identity has been publicly attached to the account[5]. ### Why did Owl City share the turtle question? Owl City posted the question to their Facebook page on December 29, 2010, likely because they found it funny[4]. It was an early example of a musician sharing internet humor content with fans. ### What is the "turtle venom" answer? A popular joke response that reads: "No! If you drink orange juice now, it will activate the turtle venom in your veins and send you into a coma"[3]. The deadpan commitment to the fake medical premise made it a fan-favorite reply. ## References 1. [Google Search]() 2. [Yahoo Search - Web Search]() 3. [The Most Funny Yahoo Answers]() 4. [I Was Bitten By a Turtle When I Was a Young Lad - Know Your Meme]() 5. [List of musician and band name etymologies]() 6. [Yahoo Search - Web Search]() 7. [The best dumb questions on Yahoo Answers – St. Eutychus]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/i-was-bitten-by-a-turtle-when-i-was-a-young-lad Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library