Origin of "seriously (monkey)"

[gallows fodder]

Um, yeah, the title kinda says it all.

I've seen this phrase pop up on different message boards and in conversation with friends, and I want to know where it started and what its original context was.

Check it out: I googled "seriously (monkey)" and got these results -- you can see the phrase at work in results #1, 2, 4, 4a, 6, and 8.

[SpoilerVirgin]

It's a Television Without Pity thing. I just read about its origins the other day, but I've done some searching and I can't seem to find the explanation. I'm almost positive that it involved a Buffy the Vampire Slayer discussion. IIRC, someone posted a reply with an image of a monkey in it, and that came to mean that the reply wasn't really serious, so seriously (monkey) is a way of indicating sarcasm, or that the post isn't really serious. Or something like that.

TWoP phrases seem to have a way of spreading rapidly all over the net.

[gallows fodder]

Ah, thank you!

[teleute12]

TWOP did a thing for a while where you could buy a banner ad, and they would display it. Some people, tired of hearing some fans of the Willow/Tara pairing complain about Tara's death, designed an ad telling people to get over it already - seriously (picture of a monkey). I believe the monkey was supposed to look like Amber Benson?

This quickly spread hither and yon across the 'net, and (monkey) is used as a way to make a rant less serious.

[teleute12]

[a href=http://www.livejournal.com/users/thefirstevil/9953.html?thread=354017#t354017]A better explanation.[/a]