Wild Wasteland is a trait in Fallout: New Vegas, released in 2010, that replaces some of the game's more serious encounters with stranger, humorous references and events. Players who choose it at character creation encounter jokes and oddities that would otherwise be absent, which helped the trait become a favourite talking point among fans. The short sound associated with it is now shared online as a shorthand for that same playful weirdness, and creators reuse it whenever an edit needs a quick signal that reality has just taken a stranger turn.