It is a very common theme in Elite Dangerous, to the point that the station controller will sometimes say "Oh seven, commander" to you.

Also ubiquitous in Eve Online since about 15 years ago. Did it originate in Elite Dangerous?

No, predates broadband at least. Certainly was around on Usenet in the nineties.

This is where I was first exposed to it. I'm not surprised it's got a longer history than that, though.

Same, I thought I was terminally online but I've never seen this before.

Oh, God, these comments may be the trigger to my mid-life crisis.

I remember being a terminally online teen thinking i would never fall out of “what’s hip” bc i enjoyed being online so much at the time. I have since never once installed or used TikTok and I have no idea what’s happening I am sure

If it's any consolation, it's been around since the 90s

See it quite a lot in Twitch chat

For the people who weren't aware... https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/orz

Looks like a swimmer to me... what do you see?

The 'o' is a head and the '7' is an arm giving a salute.

Here, let me help you with that...

   O7
  /|
   Λ

That's ridiculous, nobody swims up a waterfall

(but actually, thanks for the illustration... my dad was in the military but apparently long enough ago that I entirely missed this)

Edit: oh! You used a capital O rather than a little one! That makes loads of difference... the "hand" placement in o7 is way over the forehead, while O7 (or is it 07? either way) is much closer to a proper salute! Perhaps the military culture hasn't entirely worn off after all...

It's also the wrong hand. But I think the little o looks more like a head in this case. O7 just looks like a hex code or something.

Right hand if you're standing behind him...

Ah... it makes sense. I thought it was a head being scratched.

It's a salute. :)

It's a salute.

A salute

> o7

Someone saluting

Funny, I didn't see it as a salute... I thought it was a "flex".