Robotnik: Is he still looking at me funny?
Stone: Yes, he is.
Robotnik: Tell him to stop or I'll pull up his search history.
Stone: Yes, he is.
Robotnik: Tell him to stop or I'll pull up his search history.
The internet is a vast place. Full of almost everything you can think of. There are some things that people constantly like to refer back to on their "down time." Unfortunately, some people have things saved on their computer or browser history they would rather not get out, lest it completely destroy their reputation towards their peers. As a result, some are willing to do anything to keep people from seeing it, even going as far as destroying the whole computer that the content is stored on.
Usually Played for Laughs. May be related to What You Are in the Dark and Bitch in Sheep's Clothing if a Nice Guy in real life is an Internet Jerk or internet Troll online. Might overlap with Porn Stash if the embarrassing content is sexual in nature. See also How Did That Get in There?. Contrast Unfortunate Search Results, when the person wasn't intending to look for anything inappropriate but found it anyway.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- I Think Our Son Is Gay: In a Flashback, 13-year-old Hiroki's long list of internet searches for male nudes was what first made his mother aware that he's probably Closet Gay. However, she didn't confront him, deciding to let him come out when he feels comfortable doing so.
- That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Before dying, Satoru tells his friend to take his computer and throw it in a bathtub full of water. Later in the story, he wonders if he actually did it or not. It's never shown in the manga, but it is shown in the anime that the friend did throw it into the water.
- In one manga spinoff whose premise is that for no clear reason the main cast has been integrated into the modern Earth working for Veldora's company, the (still-slime) Satoru finds his apartment still exists but his computer is indeed immersed in a bathtub. His Great Sage skill confirms the data on it (which he finally has a use for again) is unrecoverable.
- TSUKIMICHI -Moonlit Fantasy-: Before being sent to the other world, Tsukuyomi tells Makoto that he removed all embarrassing belongings and deleted his internet history on Earth. Makoto says he truly is a god in response.
Films — Animated
- Toy Story 3: When Woody goes on the computer in Bonnie's house to find Andy's address, he asks who "Velocistar237" is. Trixie quickly goes to erase the information repeatedly saying he is "just a dinosaur toy down the street."
Films — Live Action
- In Don Jon, Barbara is not happy to find out that Jon has been watching porn behind her back, and she found out by going through his Internet history, which he had no idea even existed.
- In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Robotnik threatens to do this to Bennington for merely staring at him.
Robotnik: Is he still looking at me funny? [...] Tell him to stop or I'll pull up his search history.
- Spirited (2022): One of the newly deceased recruits to the spirit’s organization asks if their Internet histories get deleted when they die. The answer is no, of course.
- Suicide Squad (2016): Implied with Warden Griggs, considering that deleting his browser history is the second thing he asks his second in command to do once Deadshot puts a gun to his face and looks like he's gonna kill him (the first is, obviously, that the guards kill Deadshot).
- Ted 2: When Ted goes to use John's laptop, he expresses disgust at the massive amount of porn John has on his laptop. John calls him out for looking at his "private shit", but Ted points out there are literally thousands of files wide open, up to and including "Clockwise Rimjob", "Counterclockwise Rimjob", and "Chicks With Dicks". The two then proceed to smash the laptop and bury the pieces in the bottom of the harbour.
Literature
- Invoked by Tilly in Harmony (2016). Scott keeps all the campers' phones in his office, but Ms. Frances somehow manages to steal hers back and forgets to lock the drawer when she returns it. Tilly takes the phone and looks up a bunch of embarrassing porn so Ms. Frances will think Scott did it. This comes back to bite her later - one of the search terms she used was "teen," and Ms. Frances accuses Scott of using her phone to look up underage porn.
Live-Action TV
- In an early episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the precinct gets hacked and everyone's search histories get leaked. These include "how much fudge is in a calorie?" (Scully), "how to make desk yoghurt" (Charles), "Daniel Craig hands" and "close up" (Amy) and "cheapest date possible" (Jake).
- CSI: NY: In former FBI agent Det. Jo Danville's first episode upon joining the team,"The 34th Floor," she freaks out the resident Lab Rat, Adam Ross, by telling him, "We know about those web sites you visit." He tells her he's not the only one who uses that computer because he has friends over a lot.
- Doctor Who:
- In the Eleventh Doctor's first episode, he advises a young man he's about to launch into fame to delete his browser history, after seeing something incriminating on his screen.
Doctor: Blimey. Get a girlfriend, Jeff!
- It's a Running Gag with the Twelfth Doctor, who repeatedly tells people not look at his browser history. Osgood does not follow this advice in "The Zygon Inversion", and reacts with "Whoa!" upon seeing what he's hiding. "And stay out of my browser history!" becomes a Running Gag with Twelve's sonic sunglasses. Including with the First Doctor, who doesn't know what "browser history" means.
- In the Eleventh Doctor's first episode, he advises a young man he's about to launch into fame to delete his browser history, after seeing something incriminating on his screen.
- A sketch in Key & Peele has Jordan Peele playing a husband whose wife notices their search history on their computer was erased. She realizes it was because he was looking at porn, but she was OK with it as long as it wasn't that bizarre. They were, as Jordan sweated a lot and each more bizarre fetish that was mentioned cause him to sweat even harder.
- The Office (UK): In "Work Experience", a pornographic image with David's face is circulated across the office. After a prolonged hunt to find the perpetrator, David accuses Tim, who then reveals that it was actually Finch, and explains it is quite easy to trace the search history of anyone using an office computer. David then nervously asks if anyone knows how to delete a browser history.
- In one episode of Stromberg (the German version of The Office (UK)), an IT guy comes to fix a network problem on Stromberg's computer. Opening the browser, he notices that somebody recently visited a porn website for "Russian sluts". Stromberg feigns ignorance but it's obvious who the perpetrator was.
Theatre
- Ride the Cyclone: In fall fair suite, an early rendition of the opening number, Constance remarks how she hoped she wiped her internet history clean.
Video Games
- One of these is brought up during a conversation at the party in Mass Effect 3's Citadel DLC between Shepard, Joker, and Traynor.
- Nexomon Extinction: There is a ghost who asks the player to fulfill his final wish… specifically, clearing the browser history on his computer. The whole situation is Lampshaded by Coco:
Coco: This is stupid.
- Played for Horror in the Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery unintended emails. One plotline deals with Luis, an IT guy, messaging his coworker Vanessa about her odd search history on her work computer. None of it is porn-related, but instead increasingly disturbing search terms relating to Cold-Blooded Torture, various other forms of Gorn, and simply 'help.' Her order history isn't much better, either, with her purchasing a calendar themed around blood eagle Viking torture, a book about human dissection, literal thumbscrews, and eventually flowers and chocolate with a threatening message directed at herself. This is a huge hint towards the extent of Sanity Slippage Vanessa is going through as a result of Glitchtrap's influence.
Web Animation
- The OMORIBOY Chronicles: Omoriboy when getting sent back to 2012 protests with "I haven't deleted my search history!"
- SMG4: In "The Meme Games 2022", one of the challenges is to survive viewing Bob's internet search history. The challenge commences only to show everyone except Mario immediately dead and Mario proclaiming that "if that's not illegal, it certainly should be" to whatever it is he's seeing on the computer.
- Implied in Zero Punctuation, in Yahtzee's review of Fallout 76, with an image of an imp having blood covering their eyes:
"If your browsing history is anything like mine... well, first of all, delete your history, you sick bastard!"
Webcomics
- Questionable Content: Played for Laughs with Dora's libidinous brother Sven. Much to his dismay, when Faye uses his computer, she can't type anything
into his web browser without it auto-completing to a porn site.
Faye: Let's see what else it fills in! Q- porn. W- porn. E- porn. R- porn. T- porn. Y- porn. U-
Sven: Quit it!
Faye: Option-W- porn? That's weird. - In one xkcd strip, Cueball offers solidarity with Google users who have recently had their browser histories exposed by a hack by showing his own embarrassing recent searches, which are full of paranoid queries about velociraptors.
- Rudy Dewclaw, son of Kevin & Kell borrows Bruno's laptop, and discovers in Bruno's browser history that he's been checking the Interspecies Relationship Website starting with the Monday 5 January 1998 strip. Bruno and Corrie become concerned that their secret relationship has been jeopardized. Fortunately, Kell covers for them by telling Rudy that she visited the site while Bruno's laptop sat unused.
- In this New Yorker comic, a warrior comes upon a legendary sword in a stone and is told that only one with a pure soul can lift it. He proceeds to take out his cellphone and start deleting his search history.
- In one Penny Arcade strip, when Brenna confronts Tycho about him looking at poetry on his computer, he initially assumes that she's referring to "the giraffe video".
- The Zootopia DeviantArt fancomic Savage Company has a page where Da Chief reads Nick's search history aloud. It starts off innocuous enough, but then degenerates into NSFW searches.
- Something*Positive: Davan encourages his boss to invest in cybernetic tech, but his boss is only interested in theatrical productions. Davan then points out that the tech is a device that clears the user's search history and hard drives as soon as it stops detecting a pulse. Sanderson starts talking about the number of zeros the check will need.
- In this Trader Lydia strip, after obtaining the ability to see the audience, Summer calls out one reader for their dirty browser history and threatens to show it to their mother.
Web Original
- Texts from Superheroes: The Vision accesses his fellow Avengers' browser histories to figure out what to get them for Christmas.
- In one of LevelUp’s literal Pokémon videos, Medicham uses Mind Reader on Mr Mime and both parties are shocked by Medicham learning Mr Mime’s Google search history.
- Played with in Tumblr's 2016 April Fools' Day event, a faux presidential election with fictional lizard candidates. One of said lizards, Mop, releases his entire web history to the public, which for most presidential candidates is something that would be done to them and would be a scandal. Mop's history includes hundreds of searches about lungs, with the occasional other odd search such as 'Miracle Toast With Stunning face'.
Web Video
- This gag comes up occasionally in Acquisitions Incorporated, such as when Jerry, as Omin, wonders out loud about "dragon holes" (as in, entrances to dragon lairs), and Chris the Dungeon Master instantly turns it into a dirty joke by claiming he has seen Jerry/Omin's browsing history which apparently contained a lot of "dragon hole" queries.
- In Danganronpa Abridged Thing, the second motive for the Killing Game is that they either kill someone in 24 hours or Monokuma will share their embarrassing internet history with the world. Makoto Naegi's is searching up pictures of Sayaka Maizono in just socks and pictures of girls with cup noodles on their headsnote . Byakuya Togami's is murder mystery porn. And Mondo Oowada's internet searches reveal that he is a furry.
- In Hellsing Ultimate Abridged, one of the mercenaries from the Wild Geese says a few decidedly odd things while under the effects of Zorin's illusions. After the illusion is broken and he makes some last such comment, it finally makes one of the other hardened mercs wonder what the hell this guy looks up online.
Weird Mercenary: [As the illusion of Zorin being a giant is broken] Oh thank God. I thought she was going to crush me... with her giant vagina.
Other Mercenary: Ok, what does your internet history look like?! - Joueur du Grenier: During the Metal Gear Solid review, Papy Grenier mentions Psycho Mantis as a telepath who could read your past and your thoughts. One of the kids comments that it's a good thing the game wasn't on PC.
Let's go through your browser history... Oh, fucking shit *gags* get away from me you swine!
- Resident Evil Abridged: Near the end, it's revealed that Barry's reason for going along with Wesker's plan is because, if he doesn't, Wesker will tell Barry's wife about all the schoolgirl tentacle porn her husband has hidden in his browser history.
Chris: [laughing] "So, you seriously handed her over to Wesker so he wouldn't tell your wife about the porn?"
- Jokes about character's search histories being so horrible they're painful to witness are common in Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers. The crowning example is in SM G4s Mario Bloopers The Meme Games 2022 where one of the challenges Mario sets is to survive Bob's search history and the challenge is rendered void as it kills the entire rest of the cast.
Mario: If that's not illegal, it should be.
- Uncle Al: In "Donkey Kong Country Abridged", when the Crystal Titty is stolen by King K. Rool, Cranky's main concern is that he'll use it to expose his undoubtedly perverted Internet history.
Western Animation
- In The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Roots", when it turns out that Nicole is tech-savvy enough to know how to go through the web history on Gumball and Darwin's desktop, Gumball, Anais, and Richard go outside to destroy another desktop, a laptop, and a tablet for fear of her going through those.
- American Dad!: Jeannie Gold, wedding planner extraordinaire and one of Roger's personas, advises Stan of a... niche website she runs as a sideline:
"Jeannie": There's some real barnyard stuff on there. If you do visit, make sure to clear your internet history. In fact, just uninstall your browser, scrub that thing clean! Seriously, they will take us both to jail.
- Archer: When the FBI storms ISIS, Krieger desperately tries to delete his browser history before they break down his door and force him to the ground. He later asks for immunity and gives information as long as they don't search his computer or his crawlspace.
- Family Guy:
- In "Vestigial Peter", Peter tries to get rid of his vestigial twin Chip by siccing a dingo on him. The dingo instead drags away Stewie, who tells Brian to delete his Internet history.
- In "Family Guy Lite", when Peter inadvertently activates the fire sprinklers at the brewery, a Slinky working there starts rusting and is unable to clear his browser history of him searching for Slinky-based anal porn in time. Cue Big "NO!".
- In the Glitch Techs pilot "Age Of Hinobi", when Miko thinks she'll be eaten by the giant kitty, she says "Delete my browser history."
- Gravity Falls: When investigating the Author's secret bunker, everybody comments how creepy one of the rooms is, except for Mabel who says it's not as creepy as Dipper's internet history, with an embarrassed grunt from Dipper.
- Rick and Morty: When the Council of Ricks looks for evidence proving Rick is guilty of murdering other Ricks, they resort to scanning his portal gun history. When they do, Rick begs them not to and tries to justify that they have all been to weird places.
- In the Sonic Boom episode "The Haunted Lair", Dr. Eggman tells Orbot and Cubot to clear his browser history and don't look at it.
- South Park: This is the goal of TrollTrace in Season 20: to build a website capable of letting anyone see everyone's Internet history. This causes massive panic worldwide and prompts Cartman to run away with Heidi to Mars out of fear that she will see his misogynistic comments written before he quit social media when Kyle tells him about this. Luckily, the system is taken down in minutes just after its activation thanks to Gerald/Skankhunt42.
- Uncle Grandpa: When the cast plays a board game that involves the players literally being taken to jail, Belly Bag pleads to everyone not to look at his browser history before being thrown in a garbage truck.
Real Life
- Many amateur murderers have been caught after police have searched their devices and found incriminating search histories. Kouri Richins, a woman who killed her husband and then wrote a children's book "Are You With Me?" about dealing with grief of losing a loved one. However, she was later found to have googled such gems as "Can cops force you to do a Lie Detector Test?" "Luxury prisons for the rich in America," "Death certificate says pending, will life insurance still pay?" "If someone is poisoned what does it go down on the death certificate as," and "How to permanently delete information from an iPhone remotely."
