That’s like the most purified explanation

The reason it has been memed a ton in the last like 6 years or so is because Corey <giant last name> said “womp womp” on Fox News in response to abuse of migrant/immigrant children. The other guy got pissed off and it became a whole thing similar to Trump’s covfefe incident where the media “wanted to know what it meant!” One of the biggest Trump guys doing the sarcastic tiny trombone sound when confronted with the reality of what he supports… but Chris Cuomo was confused over the meaning.

Here’s the clip

Anyway, I think this clip + media response (social media like reddit, twitter as well) popularized it in recent years