Breathing comes from Jason Derulo's second studio album Future History, released in 2011 at the height of his early pop and R&B success. The full song is a dramatic, electronic-tinged love track built around heavy breathing and a lover's heartbeat, themes that made short excerpts easy to repurpose online. On soundboards the song has been reduced to an almost instant snippet, shared less as music to listen to and more as a reaction for nervous excitement, romantic longing, and the feeling of being overwhelmed around someone admired.