The laugh comes from Final Fantasy X, Square's 2001 role-playing game, in a quiet scene where Tidus shows Yuna how to laugh on command as a way to face hardship. Tidus is voiced by James Arnold Taylor, whose deliberately wooden delivery made the moment unintentionally hilarious. Clips of the scene spread across early YouTube and YTMND in the mid-2000s, spawning countless remixes that loop the laugh over dance beats. The joke endures because every gamer recognises that forced HA-HA-HA instantly, making it shorthand for cheerful awkwardness.