Here’s the backstory of where the “Yanny vs. Laurel” audio clip came from—and how it went viral—down to the person who recorded it.

There are a few partial explanations for how Yanny and Laurel became 2018’s version of “the dress,” which similarly tore the internet apart three years ago, writes Louise Matsakis at Wired. 

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A number of academics have said that the clip is an “ambiguous figure.” As one auditory neuroscientist explained, the audio version of “Rubin’s Vase,” an optical illusion where two people’s profiles can also be seen as a flower vase. In other words, it’s an optical illusion, except for your ears.

On May 11, Katie Hetzel, a freshman at Flowery Branch High School in Georgia, was studying for her world literature class, where “laurel” was one of her vocabulary words. She looked it up on Vocabulary.com and played the audio. Instead of the word in front of her, she heard “yanny.”

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