Doomsday bells have become a familiar shorthand online for impending disaster, borrowed from the long tradition of tolling bells marking danger, funerals and the end of an era in films, games and storytelling. In short-form videos and memes, creators use this kind of deep toll to ironically announce bad news, a failed plan or an exaggerated catastrophe, letting the audience recognise the joke before anything is said. Its staying power comes from that instant recognition: one slow toll is enough to signal that something serious, or seriously funny, is coming.