Donkey braying, known in Russian as ishachinoe rzhanie, has long been recorded as a farm sound effect before short clips of it spread on soundboards and meme pages. The hee-haw call naturally resembles harsh human laughter, so online creators began reusing animal recordings as a mocking reaction rather than a nature sound. It is still used that way today across short videos and edits, where the familiar bray stands in for ridicule without needing any dialogue or explanation from the creator.