The creeper first appeared in Minecraft during its alpha phase in 2009 and quickly became the game's most recognisable mob, despite having no dialogue or roar. Its only warning is that hiss before a timed explosion, which made the sound shorthand for danger among millions of players. As Minecraft videos took over YouTube in the early 2010s, the hiss escaped the game into edits, streams and memes, and it is still used whenever someone wants an audience to feel a threat creeping up unseen.