The losing horn comes from the American television game show The Price is Right, where it is played when a contestant loses a pricing game or overbids. Its four descending notes became one of the most recognisable fail sounds on television long before memes, and clips of the show carried it to YouTube, gaming videos and soundboards. Because viewers already understood it as a final wrong answer, creators borrowed it as a universal punchline for mistakes, bad luck and expensive errors, and it remains a shorthand for losing.