The Bruh sound effect rose to fame during the Vine era in the mid-2010s, when the single deadpan utterance became the internet's shorthand for disappointment. It spread through fail compilations and gaming montages on YouTube, then found a second life on TikTok and in meme edits across every platform. Short, instantly recognisable and endlessly reusable, it stuck around because one flat syllable says what a whole paragraph cannot: that was embarrassing.