Sandbox / Googling The Wick Check

Googling the New Acquaintance and Internet Stalking, both barely Standing, seem like they can be merged.

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GTNA

1. Anime.Ghost In The Shell Arise: The manga starts off with Aramaki prepping the team with a new mission, but they're waiting on Batou to finish bringing some supplies back to HQ. Motoko figured it'd be best to let a pro handle it, revealing that Batou worked in a delivery service before he joined the military. Batou was not amused.
2. Buffy.Tropes A To G: Xander is initially squicked when Willow says she's Googling a student Buffy is trying to help until he's told what it means.
3. Characters.Tales From The Other Railway: Looks up information about Pip and Emma in “A Woman’s Touch” in order to embarrass them.
4. Characters.X Men Orchis: Combo Platter Powers: Karima's cybernetic systems include an internal sensor suite, integral interdiction systems that prevent others from scanning her, a built-in satellite modem, internal hard-drive storage, holographic projectors, a medical scanner, a bio-tagging and tracking system, targeting scanners, and anti-gravity systems permitting flight, a built-in auto targeting system that allows her to track down mutants, as well as threat analysis and counter-measure programs.
5. Fanfic.Tales From The Other Railway: Bowler, Spamcan, and Stuck-Up look up information about Pip and Emma in “A Woman’s Touch” in order to embarrass them.
6. Fanfic.The Games We Play The Gamer RWBY: Played straight. ZCE, commented out
7. Film.Amazon Women On The Moon: Used as a gag (predating the World Wide Web!) when a woman runs a background check on a blind date. Things don't go well.
8. Film.Catwoman 2004: Detective Lone Googles the artwork on Patience Phillips' walls after meeting her.
9. Film.Desk Set: As a research librarian, Bunny is able to do this to Richard despite living in the pre-Google era.
   You were born in Columbus, Ohio in May. That makes you a Gemini. You're a graduate of M.I.T. with a PhD in Science. You're a Phi Beta Kappa, although you don't wear your key, which means either that you're modest or that you lost it. You spent World War II in Greenland ... working on something so top secret that even I couldn't find out about it. You're one of the leading exponents of the electronic brain in this country, and the inventor of an electronic brain machine called EMARAC - the Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator.
   
   That's all I found out so far, but I only had half an hour.
10. Film.Taken: When Bryan finds out that his daughter Kimmy has a new boyfriend, the first thing he does is run a background check... just as he did with all her other previous boyfriends. His ex-wife Lenore even tells him to not run a background check on the new guy, because she knows that he ALWAYS does this.
11. JusticeLeague.Tropes A To L: When the archaeologist Carter Hall asks Hawkgirl out on a date (and she accepts), Batman looks up the man online—and finds that he has a long history of starting flame wars by white knighting on "I hate Hawkgirl" web forums. This is the first evidence that Carter is a little bit obsessed with Hawkgirl.
12. Literature.Galaxy Of Fear: Tash meets a man who everyone agrees is crazy. She's told he's the sole survivor of a Coming in Hot situation, his mind snapped, and if he leaves D'vouran he'll be apprehended by the authorities. She accesses the Holonet to look up records on him and finds that they match what she's been told, but notices a program attached to the records that alerts someone that she's accessed them, and naturally Tash finds this suspicious.
13. Literature.The Devil Wears Prada: We get a lot of backstory on Miranda from what Andrea says about her Google search just after she gets the job.
14. Literature.The Twilight Saga: Bella searches about vampires after hearing Jacob Black describe the local legends about them. She tries to put two and two together to figure out what Edward really was.
15. Main.The Internet: index
16. Main.Magical Computer: index
17. Main.The Newest Ones In The Book: The World Wide Web was not created until the late 80s and this practice seemed to become common near the turn of the millennium. index
18. Main.New Media Tropes: index
19. Main.Suspiciously Convenient Index: index
20. Manga.Death Note: When Light Yagami and Misa Amane discover they [[spoiler:are the first and second Kira, respectively]], the first thing they do is try to look information about each other. Light, while a genius, keeps his profile low, just giving basic information on his online profile. Misa on the other hand, is a famous model with a lot of public interaction and public events. Obviously this initially stresses Light quite a bit.
21. Music.Garfunkel And Oates: Google references this trope.
    Everybody Googles each other
    Everybody does their Facebook research
    It's how we get to know one another
    To make sure that we don't get raped
22. Recap.Doctor Who S 27 E 1 Rose: Rose decides to research the Doctor by searching "Doctor" on... "Search-Wise", which predictably brings up a huge number of irrelevant results. So, she narrows the search to "Doctor Blue Box", which brings up a relevant result improbably quickly.
23. Recap.Doctor Who S 38 E 1 E 2 Spyfall: Daniel Barton looks up "Sofia Afzal" and "Logan Jackson" on his smartphone to determine they are who they say they are. Thanks to tech from MI6, Yaz and Ryan's cover identities do possess a real online presence so Barton doesn't find anything amiss. Called back to later, as Barton sarcastically asks Ryan if he should call him Logan as he makes the team fugitives.
24. Recap.Sherlock S 01 E 01 A Study In Pink: John searches up Sherlock Holmes which brings him naturally to Holmes' website.
25. Series.BIA: Not a literal "new acquaintance" case - Ana never talks about her past, her family or really anything personal, which makes Daisy suspicious. After asking Ana for her last name, which she also never mentioned before, she googles her and finds an ecology activist whose face is never shown in photos as she is on the lam after making radical statements. It is not revealed whether Helena was really an activist after she became Ana, or she knew said woman from the media and used her name inadvertently when she needed to cover up her real identity (as Helena Urquiza was considered dead).
26. Series.Drake And Josh: In "My Dinner with Bobo", Drake and Josh sell their new pet orangutan to a scientist who says he worked with apes in Africa. A suspicious Megan does a search on the guy and finds out that he fled while being prosecuted for trying to eat primates.
27. Series.Elementary: Sherlock Googles Joan before meeting her for the first time.
28. Series.How I Met Your Mother:
    • Relied upon for the 'Lorenzo von Matterhorn' play from Barney's Playbook, where he's created fake websites describing Lorenzo's accomplishments for when girls look him up.
    • Invoked in one episode where Ted mentions how dating isn't like it used to be since people can find out all sorts of things about you before you even go on a first date. So when he asks out the chick of the day, they decide to make a pact not to google each other before their date. Naturally his friends being the nosy-nellies that they are (even lampshaded by Robin's current therapist boyfriend) Google her instead. Commence them freaking out and trying to get Ted to look at what they found. He finally caves in, and instead of it being awful, it turns out the girl is a rocket-scientist-baby-saving-extremely-wealthy-miracle woman. So Ted blows the date by having an inferiority complex.
29. Series.Scrubs: A patient Dr. Kelso is treating finds information about him and her medical condition via her smart phone, faster -and more accurately- than he was telling her. Being somewhat behind the times, he had no idea how she was doing it until Dr. Cox mentioned it as something patients have started doing.
30. Series.Silicon Valley: A running gag has the guys Google new associates, and autocomplete tells us about their character before they even do the search. When they Google Russ Hanneman, for example, the top autocomplete suggestions are "douchebag", "sexual harassment lawsuit", "billionaire" and "misogynist".
31. TrochaicTetrameter.Tropes: index
32. TruthInTelevision.G To I: It has become common for employers to check potential employee’s social medias.
33. YMMV.Desk Set: Hilarious in Hindsight: Or Harsher, depending on your point of view. Bunny's ability to research Richard's life story shows Googling the New Acquaintance is Older Than They Think.

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IS

1. Anime.Aggretsuko: Retsuko's friend Fenneko is constantly checking out Tsunoda's social media page to keep tabs on her.
2. Characters.Vida: Karla discovers that Johnny slept with Lyn after she finds Lyn’s Instagram and recognizes Johnny’s tattoos in one of her pictures.
3. ElGoonishShive.Tropes F To L: Tom tries to do this during his ultra-manipulative attempts at wooing Susan. A slip of the tongue lets Susan know that he was quietly stalking her whilst his messenger was set to Invisible, and his whole attempt falls apart quickly.
4. Film.Bo Burnham Inside: Bo lists various things you might see scrolling through a 'White Woman's Instagram'. Although the things he lists range between banality and stereotype, there's also a verse about grief and family, which a large amount of users feel comfortable publicising on their social media accounts.
   "Some random quote from Lord of the Rings
   Incorrectly attributed to Martin Luther King
   Is this Heaven?
   Or am I looking at a
   White woman
   A white woman's Instagram"
5. Film.Ingrid Goes West: A major part of the film, as Ingrid is obsessed with Taylor on Instagram.
6. Film.Searching: A father tries to find his missing daughter by searching and retracing her internet activity.
7. Funny.Cs 188 Music: M&Ms featuring Re-Anna and Scooby Doo Doo
   "Now I know we said things, did things that we didn't, now we're in each other's Facebook..."
8. Literature.The Berenstain Bears: Lost in Cyberspace has Teacher Bob talk about the same thing: how random strangers on the Internet will take advantage of your personal information to lure you into a trap and kidnap you. Lizzie is shaken despite pointing out her dad is chief of police. She also finds other criminals by accident in a poetry chatroom and runs to school in a panic after realizing the poems are code for extortionist plans.
9. Main.The Newest Ones In The Book: It's been around since the internet became more widespread. index
10. Main.New Media Tropes: index
11. Main.Stalker With A Crush: An increasingly common tool for stalking is the internet; the trope may cross over with Internet Stalking if they use the world wide web as a tool for it.
12. Music.Amanda Palmer: The subject of the comic torch song "I Google You" written by her and ex-husband Neil Gaiman, about a person late at night wistfully looking up an old flame online.
    "I Google you
    When the day is done and everything is through
    I've seen that journal that you kept that month in France
    I've watched you dance
    on YouTube..."
13. Music.Bad Bunny: From "Pero Ya No":

    Ahora en todas las redes me sigues (Now you follow me on all the sites)
    Sorry, mami, no me hostigues (Sorry, mami, don't harass me)

14. Music.Ed Sheeran: From "New Man"
    Still lookin' at your Instagram and I'll be creepin' a lil'
    I'll be tryin' not to double tap, from way back
    'Cause I know that's where the trouble's at
15. Music.Garfunkel And Oates: The subject of the song "Google".
    "Everybody Googles each other
    Everybody does their Facebook research
    It's how we get to know one another
    To make sure that we don't get raped."
16. Series.American Vandal: The fictional investigative documentarians go through Snapchats, instant messages, Facebook profiles, stories and more to find clues.
17. Series.Atypical: When Zahid decides to ditch his nursing exam to get married, Sam and friends must find his whereabouts to stop the wedding. Paige and Abby help him by analysing Instagram photos, creating fake accounts and looking at places Zahid has checked into.
18. Series.Broad City: Ilana discusses stalking Jaime's boyfriend on social media.
19. Series.Charmed 2018: After Lucy suspects Parker cheated on her, she and the girls do a deep dive on social media to find dirt on him.
20. Series.Crazy Ex Girlfriend: When Josh's ex-girlfriends Rebecca and Valencia learn that Josh is dating a girl named Anna, they fall into a rabbit hole of stalking Anna on the internet in hopes of learning everything they can about her. This is depicted in the song "Research Me Obsessively", where Anna's online images come to life and seemingly taunt the two. The lyrics go from light social media scouring to posing as a high school friend to gain access to her private social media to paying someone on the internet to do a background check.
    "Research me obsessively, uh huh!
    Find out everything you can about me
    You know you want to
    dig for me relentlessly, uh-huh!
    Using every available
    search tool and all forms
    of social media!"
21. Series.Fargo Season Three: V.M. Varga attempts to Facebook stalk Gloria, but because of her mild Technophobia, he can't find any details about her.
22. Series.I Shouldnt Be Alive: A benevolent example that ends up saving their lives in "Chasm of Death," when the wife of one of the missing men manages to figure out where they are by going through her husband's internet history.
23. Series.Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia: In season 7, after being shushed by a stranger in a local bar, Dee and Mac attempt to find him online. Dee friends him on Facebook and uses his status updates to track his whereabouts, which is an example of social media being used to actually stalk someone.
24. Series.Love 2016: While pining for Gus, Mickey scrolls his Facebook profile and looks at photos of him and Heidi with jealousy.
25. Series.New Girl:
    • In season 4, Cece is obsessed with looking at photos of Schmidt and Fawn on social media. Surrounded by trash and dirty clothes, she is obviously still hung up on him.
    • In season 5, Winston grows jealous of selfies his girlfriend posts with other guys. He constantly checks her Instagram to see what she has uploaded. He vents his feelings about this to the others.
26. Series.The Middle: Frankie Facebook-stalks one of Sue's friends on social media after her daughter wasn't invited to a slumber party.
27. Series.Trophy Wife: Diane creates a fake profile on Facebook so she can keep an eye out on her children. She uses this profile to find the party Hillary has snuck off to.
28. Series.You 2018: Joe becomes obsessed with Beck. He tries looking her up on Facebook but can't find her profile. He reverse-image searches a photo of her, and uses meta-data to find out what location she's from to narrow his Facebook search.
29. TheSimpsons.Tropes I To M: In 'Lisa the Drama Queen', Homer mentions that he frequently looks at Lisa's social media.

    Homer: I search all the children's Facebook pages for unflattering references to me. By the way, I enjoyed the photos of your trip to Yosemite.

30. VideoGame.Yandere Simulator: Ayano can stalk other students online to learn about their interests. This will make interactions with them easier.
31. WesternAnimation.Tuca And Bertie: In "Vibe Check," Tuca spends a long time scrolling through her new crush Kara's social media, and becomes worried when she likes a very old photo. Thankfully Kara seems cool with it and comments on Tuca's photos teasing her about it.
32. WesternAnimation.We Bare Bears: In the episode "Professor Lampwick," when Chloe asks Panda what led to the bear brothers kidnapping the titular professor.
    Chloe: Panda, how did this happen?
    Panda: Well, first I internet stalked him, found his house and I asked him to come with us, but he got real mad so I uh- oh man, that sounds real bad out loud.