Insomniac Nightmares

I frequently joke that it’s a good thing I claim to be a writer because otherwise, my search history could get me in trouble. Some days that’s more true than others, but I’m sure it’s a feeling a lot of us have.

I’m sure plenty of people have things in their search history they might have a hard time explaining to others, so having a handy-dandy excuse of “it was research, bro” can lift a bit of the stigma, even if the search itself had nothing to do with a creative project. But what if the searches themselves were the creative project? I remember reading a book called Whogles that featured some of the more bizarre autocompletes, and made a point of noting that something doesn’t become an autocomplete unless lots of people have put it into the system. The one I remember best was “Why is there a dead Pakistani in my couch.” I’m pretty sure we have 4chan or Reddit to blame for that one.

Some of my searches in the last 24 hours include “Female cop on Supernatural,” (because despite being a rabid fan of the show, her being one of my favorite secondary characters, and having just watched an episode where she was a central focus, my brain randomly decided it couldn’t remember the character’s name was Jody Mills. It also decided to stall on Rowena. Don’t skip your meds, kids) “Super Neptunia FC Land” (I had forgotten where the place was on the world map, had scoured everywhere, then finally discovered I couldn’t find it because story progress was blocking it for the time being) “adite people vampires” (did you know there was a whole tribe of Arabic people who supposedly lived in Iram of the Pillars but were sunk beneath the sands in a bizarre Atlantean style myth, but who are believed to have been “rescued” by Lilith and turned into bloodsucking monstrosities? I didn’t. But I’m glad I do now!) “Demetri Martin funeral quote” (because I was looking for a meme about the whole “I’m sorry and I apologize generally mean the same thing except at funerals” joke) and “antipsychotics with fatal side effects.”

I think it’s the last one that’s liable to land me on a watch list somewhere, but I swear it was for research purposes! (But did you know that you can help curb a haldol overdose with Benedryl? Now you do. Though I dunno if I 100% believe it.)

Seriously, though. Someone needs to round up some of the more disturbing searches and compile them somewhere, alongside valid excuses for why you might be looking them up. I bet you could get Casey Anthony or Bobby Dassey to endorse it. Hmm. There’s an idea.

What sort of weirdness is in your search history? Let us know down below!