Dota 2 players have long used frog references as an in joke, because the game's longtime lead designer is known as IceFrog. Short croak clips tagged with Dota 2 grew out of that culture rather than from a famous spoken line or cutscene. Uploaded to soundboards as a fraction of a second effect, this version spread through meme edits, streams and reaction videos where brevity is the point. It stays popular because any serious gameplay moment can be undercut instantly by one deadpan ribbit.