Boowomp

About

Boowomp is an onomatopoeia of the "Low Bork" sound effect created by Sound Ideas and owned by Hanna-Barbera. It is best known for its usage in SpongeBob SquarePants when it plays over sad punchlines or is used for Squidward's nose. Memes centered around the sound effect itself began appearing on social media in the early 2020s.

Origin

It is unclear when the Low Bork first saw usage in popular media, but the earliest known use of it documented on the Sound Effects wiki^[1] is the English dub of the anime Birth in 1984. Though it saw use in many pieces of media throughout the 90s and 2000s, it is undeniably best known for its use in SpongeBob SquarePants, where it was frequently used as a sound effect over comedically sad punchlines (example shown below, left. Unedited sound shown below, right).

Memes featuring the sound effect began appearing in the early 2020s. On September 7th, 2020, Twitter user @MikeCatSU posted a video that used the effect, gaining over 830 retweets and 4,700 likes (shown below).

im sorry pic.twitter.com/INQO0bZeXo

— ✨mike✨ (@MikeCatSU) September 7, 2020

Spread

In mid-2021, the sound began seeing use in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance memes. On July 3rd, 2021, YouTuber funnywes uploaded a sketch about "Boowomp" to his Twitter, later gaining over 75,000 likes on YouTube (shown below, left). Two days later, they uploaded a second sketch to YouTube that gained over 1 million views (shown below, right).

From there, the sound effect became the subject of remix videos that were commonly associated with the Spunchbop image. For example, on August 1st, YouTuber Chriscolate posted an hour-long edit of silence that occasionally played "Boo-womp," gaining over 1.8 million views (shown below, left). On September 8th, YouTuber Memetastic combined the sound with the Vine Boom, gaining over 108,000 views in nearly a year (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References