In a video released by the White House, various members of the Trump administration reacted to the meme, and President Donald Trump said, 'I hear covfefe', as a reference to his ' covfefe' tweet the previous year. Laurel Halo and Yanni, whose names are similar to those given in the auditory illusion, also responded. Notable individuals who responded to the auditory illusion included Ellen DeGeneres, Stephen King, and Chrissy Teigen. It was picked up by YouTuber Cloe Feldman on her Twitter account. The illusion reached further popularity when the student's friend posted it on Reddit the next day. The discovery of the ambiguity phenomenon is attributed to Katie Hetzel, a 15-year-old freshman at Flowery Branch High School, near Atlanta, Georgia, who posted a description publicly on Instagram on May 11, 2018. The clip was made at Jones's home using a laptop and microphone, with surrounding foam to help soundproof the recording. The audio clip of the main word 'laurel' originated in 2007 from a recording of Jay Aubrey Jones, an opera singer, who spoke the word 'laurel' as one of 200,000 reference pronunciations produced and published by in 2007. The mixed re-recording was created by students who played the sound of the word 'laurel' while re-recording the playback amid background noise in the room.
