The phrase comes from online meme culture, where putting something deep in the ocean became shorthand for hiding content that is too strange or embarrassing to keep visible. It is tied to deep web humour, the kind of joke that imagines the internet has layers best left unexplored. Short, shareable clips like this spread through reaction videos and meme edits because the line works without context. Its staying power comes from that flexibility, as almost any cursed image or clip can be framed as something to sink.