The phrase comes from Norwegian dialect, where 'ka er detta?' is a spoken form of 'hva er dette?', meaning 'what is this?' The oldemor label points to the speaker being a great-grandmother, which is central to how the clip is shared online. It circulates as a short reaction sound on soundboards and in edited videos, usually detached from any original recording. Its appeal has less to do with a known source and more with the universal comedy of an older relative sounding completely baffled by something modern.