Elevator Music

Elevator music — the aggressively pleasant background loop of waiting rooms, hold lines, and awkward pauses everywhere. As a meme sound it's deployed during any uncomfortable silence: the argument nobody will break, the question nobody will answer, the loading screen of life. Play it and transform dead air into a lobby. Soothing, sterile, savage in context.

Origin: Classic hold/elevator muzak, the official soundtrack of awkward waiting.