High Altitude Balloon videos gained significant traction in the early 2010s with the rise of affordable action cameras like GoPros, allowing hobbyists to capture footage from the stratosphere. These videos became a battleground for internet subcultures, notably between Flat Earthers and science enthusiasts debating the curvature of the horizon. In early 2023, the genre saw a massive resurgence in meme culture following the series of high-altitude object incidents globally, where footage of balloons being intercepted by fighter jets became viral fodder for political satire and surreal humor. Today, these videos are commonly used to represent extreme perspective, isolation, or the sudden realization of being monitored from above.