You better watch out...
Window watchers are people that look in on someone else by looking through their window secretly. The window watchers are usually looking to see something inappropriate or sexual spying on someone they have a crush on or looking at a family they are no longer with to see how they are doing. The most common way is to crouch down under the window and look up. The more experienced window watcher can look down from the roof. This activity is mostly done at night in dark clothes so they are not seen. They can also come dressed up as a worker with a job that involves working in the yard or house or get that kind of job just to do that.
Closely related to The Peeping Tom, which is about peeping through windows to see people naked.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Rosario + Vampire
- Mizore, the resident stalker, can be occasionally be seen looking in on people through the window.
- Kokoa often shows up outside of a window, staring at her sister.
- Ginei likes to look at girls in their rooms by zooming in on them with his camera.
- Trigun: In an episode, Vash tried to spy on a young woman while she was bathing by tying a rope around his waist and lowering himself from the roof. She wasn't in the room, however, and when Millie walked in a second later and saw Vash, he quickly claimed that he had been patrolling the roof for spooks.
Film — Live-Action
- In Canyon Passage, the incurably nosy Hi is peeking the gap in George's shutters when he sees George stealing Mac's gold from the safe.
- In The Killing Kind, Terry spies on Lori through her bedroom window while she is undressing for bed.
- Short film The Neighbors' Window is about a frustrated middle-aged wife and mother who can't stop watching the young couple in the apartment across the street. She first notices said young couple having wild Wall Bang Her sex, but while there's a certain amount of voyeurism, the wife is less titillated and more simply jealous of the young, vital, exciting, frequently bonking couple across the way.
- Rear Window revolves entirely around this trope.
- In the last few minutes of Serenity, River does this from the ceiling. To her brother, no less.
- Wendigo: After George and Kim move into the Stuckey house, Otis starts spying on them through the windows.
Literature
- 13 Reasons Why has one as well, and he gets his just desserts.
- In Wicked, Boq can see through the windows of one of the girls' dormitories from his room, but it's not close enough for him to get a good look. One night when his roommates are out, he climbs atop a nearby roof for a better view. He falls off when Elphaba goes into the garden and sees him.
Music
- blink-182's "Voyeur". The entire song is devoted to this.
- Blue October's "The End". For a band whose music discusses depression, guilt and death regularly, it is by far their most unnerving song.
- In the Tom Jones song "Delilah" this is how the main character discovers Delilah is cheating on him.
I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window/I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blinds.
- "Every Breath You Take" by The Police is about a Stalker with a Crush following his ex-partner and not, as commonly misinterpreted, a gentle love song.
Podcasts
- The Magnus Archives: the episode "Across the Street" is narrated by someone who confesses that this is her hobby, and spends much time observing a classmate who happens to live opposite her. She does not enjoy being on the receiving end of it from the man who suddenly and mysteriously replaces that classmate.
Web Comics
- France from Hetalia: Axis Powers once spied on Austria by peeping through his window. He might have gotten away with it if he hadn't butted in on an argument that Austria was having with Germany.
Western Animation
- In an early episode of The Simpsons, "There's No Disgrace Like Home", Homer takes the whole family out on a Window Watching escapade in order to demonstrate to them that their family's personal interactions aren't normal.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In "Herbicidal Maniac" Skarr's creepy elderly neighbor is shown to spy on Skarr through his front window.
