The 'Ear Rape' meme refers to a style of internet content characterized by extremely high volume and audio distortion, designed to overwhelm the listener. Visually, these memes are often paired with 'Deep Fried' imagery, featuring heavy saturation, intense sharpening, and glowing lens flares to represent the auditory chaos. The trend gained massive traction on YouTube and SoundCloud during the mid-2010s as a form of bait-and-switch humor or jump scare. Today, it is used to humorously highlight moments of extreme intensity, frustration, or any situation where someone is 'speaking' or 'playing' something at an unnecessarily high volume.