Elevator music became shorthand for bland background music after companies like Muzak began piping calm instrumental recordings into lifts, hotels and shops in the early to mid 1900s to relax passengers and make waiting feel shorter. The smooth jazz and easy listening style stuck in popular culture as the sound of doing nothing in particular. Online, creators borrowed that association wholesale, using short loops over timelapses, queue scenes and dead air in streams and memes, where the familiar polite tune instantly tells viewers that nothing exciting is about to happen.