The sound is built from the default notification tone used by Facebook Messenger, the messaging app launched as a standalone service in 2011. When users send many messages in quick succession, the repeated pings become a recognisable sign of spam, which is why short spam compilations began circulating on soundboards and in meme edits. This version strings the alerts together for just over ten seconds, and creators keep using it as shorthand for an inbox that will not stop buzzing.