Bill O'Reilly You Can't Explain That

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Bill Oreilly You Can't Explain that meme - image macro

About

You Can't Explain That is an advice animal style image macro series featuring American Fox News Channel political commentator Bill O'Reilly. The captions presuppose that O'Reilly does not understand how mundane occurrences work, similar to the confusion presented in derivatives of Insane Clown Posse's song Miracles derivatives.

Origin

On the January 4th, 2011^[8] episode of The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly^[10] interviewed American Atheists^[7] president Dave Silverman about a billboard^[9] the company had put up arguing that religion was a scam. When Silverman asked for proof of a god's existence, O'Reilly argued that he knew because the tide comes in and out regularly without fail, and it could not be explained without divine intervention. Silverman's facial expression after this statement was the inspiration for the Are You Serious? rage face.

The first image macro featuring the quote "You can't explain that" was posted to Reddit^[11] on February 9th, 2011. It received 9505 upvotes and 2083 points overall.

WHY DOES ITHE LIGHT COME ON WHEN IOPEN THE FRIDGE? YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THAT memogenerator.net

Spread

The same day the first Reddit post was submitted, a subreddit called Can You Explain That?^[2] was established to feature these image macros. Both Memegenerator^[3] and Quickmeme^[4] pages were created using various photos of O'Reilly, with the latter having over 3500 submissions as of April 2012.

On February 10th, 2011, a series of these image macros were posted on Geekosystem.^[5] Following this post, additional images were shared on Urlesque^[6], Funny or Die^[13], Buzzfeed^[1], AcidCow^[14], and Atheist Nexus^[15] throughout the month.

Bill O'Reilly's Response

In response to criticism of his arguments for the existence of God, he made a video defending his statements about the tides and the moon being supernatural creations. After that, more image macros poking fun at his explanation were created. Stephen Colbert^[12] also critiqued O’Reilly’s argument, with a special appearance by Neil deGrasse Tyson, in which Tyson proclaims, “Actually, Stephen, I can explain that” leading to the creation of Knowledgeable Neil image macros.

Notable Examples

POLICE SHOWS UP EVERYBODY SLOWS DOWN YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THAT

WHAT MAKES THE NEKT TISSUE POP UP? YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THAT

WALK IN SUPERMARKET, DOOR OPENS BY ITSELF CANT EXPLAIN THAT memegenerator.net

PEOPLES VOICES COMING OUT OF MY TELEPHONE YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THAT

BREAD GOES IN, TOAST POPS UP YOU CANTEXPLAIN THAT memegenerator.net

Bill O'Reilly

William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr.^[16] was born on September 10th, 1949 in New York City. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in History in 1971 from Marist College in New York, a Master of Arts in broadcast journalism from Boston University and a Master of Public Administration for Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He began his television news career soon after finishing school, anchoring at local stations in Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. In 1980, O'Reilly began working at WCBS-TV in New York City where he won a second local Emmy and was promoted to a national CBS correspondent, followed by a similar position at ABC News. In 1991, O'Reilly joined the syndicated celebrity gossip show Inside Edition^[17] before receiving his own show, The O'Reilly Factor^[18] the Fox News Network in October 1996. In 2008, outtake footage of O'Reilly ranting was posted online, with the catchphrase "Fuck it, we'll do it live" becoming popular YouTube remix material.

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Buzzfeed – You Can’t Explain That! The Absolute Best Of The Bill O’Reilly Meme

^[2] Reddit – Can You Explain That subreddit

^[3] Memegenerator – Bill O'Reilly – You Can't Explain That

^[4] Quickmeme – Bill O'Reilly

^[5] Geekosystem (now The Mary Sue) – Bill O’Reilly’s Tidal Skepticism Launches “You Can’t Explain That” Meme

^[6] Urlesque via Wayback Machine – Bill O'Reilly Fails at Science and Becomes a Meme – You Can't Explain That!

^[7] American Atheists – Home

^[8] Huffington Post – O'Reilly: God Causes The Tides, Not The Moon (VIDEO)

^[9] The Christian Post – Atheists Declare Religions as 'Scams' in New Ad

^[10] Bill O'Reilly – Personal Website

^[11] Reddit – Never a Miscommunication

^[12] The Colbert Report – Bill O'Reilly Proves God's Existence – Neil deGrasse Tyson

^[13] Funny or Die – You Can't Explain That! The 12 Funniest Examples of the Bill O'Reilly Meme

^[14] Acid Cow – Here is the best of Bill O’Reilly meme. You can’t explain that.

^[15] Atheist Nexus – New Bill O'Reilly Meme

^[16] Wikipedia – Bill O'Reilly

^[17] Inside Edition – Home

^[18] The O'Reilly Factor via Wayback Machine – Home (Jan 5 2011)

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Top Comments

Raybadurrsh

Jul 09, 2011 at 10:28PM EDT

I'm conservative. I love these jokes.

You can't explain that.

+13

ScreamingDoom

Sep 11, 2011 at 03:19AM EDT

@Pseudogenesis

Actually, that's not quite right, either. Lack of proof does not make a theory in science. In fact, quite the opposite.

In order to be a hypothesis, an assertion requires several things: it needs to be falsifiable, it needs to be repeatable, and it needs to explain the phenomenon being studied.

A theory has to have everything a hypothesis has IN ADDITION TO: a body of repeatable, independent experimentation and/or field data that supports the hypothesis (experimentation is always considered superior to field data; weak theories only have field data to support claims), it must explain the phenomenon being studied as well as all related phenomenon, and it must be PREDICTIVE -- that is, you must be able to use the theory to predict future phenomenon.

A theory, in science, is something that has a HELL of a lot backing it up and is extremely strict in what counts as one. Something is not "merely" a theory in science -- once something reaches theory status, it has reached the apex of ideas.

Science assumes that the theory WILL be incomplete and be replaced with something more refined that follows all the previous rules and explains anomalous data. This doesn't mean that the theory is discarded! It's just that the parameters to which it applies are better known; a good example is Newtonian physics when compared to Relativistic physics.

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