The sus meme is closely tied to Among Us, the multiplayer social deduction game released in 2018 by Innersloth and massively popular online in 2020. As players shortened suspicious to sus, the word and its matching audio cues spread across TikTok, YouTube and gaming edits. The sound stays popular because it communicates the joke instantly, even outside the game, and pairs naturally with quick zooms, freeze frames and other suspicious reaction beats.