Parents nowadays have to be more watchful of their kids, especially since they have easy access to the internet. Anything can be searched up in the world wide web, both good things and bad. Similarly, anything can be uploaded online on social media for everyone to see, and when you throw in kids who don't know any better into the mix, you could end up with some pretty messy situations. Parents from around the world took to the internet to share the most absurd thing they found on their kids' social media profiles and search histories. Their stories will make you much more cautious the next time you lend your kid your phone or laptop:
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#1 Not Dominicans
My stepson is seven years old. I found a bunch of searches for the following: Dominicans with no hands and feet, Dominicans with no heads, Dominican torsos, Dominican legs, Dominicans in stores, Dominicans for sale, Silver Dominicans, Black Dominicans, and White Dominicans.
I was at a loss of how to bring it up to him. Thankfully, the next day, we were in a clothing store and he asked me why some Dominicans don't have hands or heads. I remembered the internet searches and became a little upset. I told him to be quiet because what he was saying could be taken offensively by Dominican people. He then got frustrated and loudly said, "Dominicans aren't people" as he pointed to a statue next to us. I breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Mannequins."
#2 Cheese Aficionado
My younger brother thought that when you entered more searches, it would delete the ones before at some point. So, I looked at his iPad one day and saw a search for cheese. Cheese, cheese, cheese, and so on. So many cheeses. Not sure what he was actually looking for.
#3 YouTube Shenanigans
I have a six-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl who are pretty obsessed with YouTube gamers. They narrate their play like they are performing for subscribers and my son actually figured out how to post videos to YouTube. I did not find this out until they had posted a few already.
They had ridiculous titles. One of them was like: "The ghost of the wealthy." It was literally a video of my foot that they took while I was asleep on the couch and you'd hear one of them say, "Foot." Then they'd giggle madly before the video cuts out. Trust me, I don't get it either.
#4 Young Conspiracist
My kids are too young for Twitter or Snapchat, but they love to watch YouTube. I started getting notifications a few months ago from people replying to "my" comments on conspiracy videos. I found out my son has a curiosity about flat earthers and Doomsday preppers.
#5 Digging A Grave
My mom gave me and my sister diaries when we were about fourteen years old. I instantly knew it was a trap and that they would read it, so I drew a monster truck and some stick figures doing kung fu. My sister instantly decided to write about the dude she kissed under the pier and how much she hated my parents. I have never seen someone dig themselves a grave so deep so fast. They read them the minute we left for school in the morning.
#6 Underlying Issues
I was trying to figure out my niece's age, but it was too late to call my mom and ask. I remembered she had an Instagram account, and I thought that might help me figure out how old she is. I looked her up. She had the standard tween Instagram bio about what activities she likes and a list of like, 15 of her BFFs, immediately followed by a disturbing quote: "Why do people hate me?"
#7 Unexpected Project
My daughter was six years old at the time. She was supposed to be asleep. I approached her room and quietly snuck in. I found her watching a video under a blanket. It was a Popular Mechanics video about how to build a personal windmill. She had a mock model in the corner of the room that she was working on. I definitely wasn't expecting that.
#8 Spanking Fun
I once caught both of my nieces playing an animated game where the objective was to spank a cartoon butt with a paddle. Every time they'd "swing the paddle" at the butt, it would emit the sound of a scream. They couldn't understand why the game was inappropriate and they were laughing hysterically while playing.
#9 Fun Bags
When he was little, my brother once wanted to help us find a cool new purse to order for my mom's birthday. He image searched "fun bags," and my parents had to answer a LOT of questions.
#10 For The PS2 Games
One time, my mom made me really mad and my dad had to talk to me about how I Googled "How to end my mom." He kept explaining why it was wrong to think that ending someone was the right way to get me the PS2 games I asked for.
#11 Grounded By Newgrounds
My dad once caught me on one of the Newgrounds games due to my search history... I was 11. He called me back in and made me explain myself. It wasn’t a fun night.
#12 YouTube Influences
I have a two-year-old and a seven-year-old. They both love to watch kids YouTube; mostly those annoying "toy unwrapping videos." I don't know. Anyhow, the other day I was working on my computer and they were playing with Play-doh. My two-year-old came into the room and asked my wife (while I was listening): "Mommy! I made this!"
My wife: "Oh! That's awesome!"
My two-year-old: "Do you like it? Let me know in the comments."
#13 Weird Videos
Not exactly social media, plus my kids are pretty young, but we let them watch Youtube Kids and I saw them watching videos of Marvel, Disney and DC characters that were dressed as a family. The Spiderman mom was pregnant...
#14 Meme Trouble
These stupid "memes" my 13-year-old created in response to his friend being expelled for a year. My kid's prize? Also expelled for the year. Plus, a "threats" charge in his academic folder. He's not allowed to set foot on county school property or attend county virtual classes. The kid is almost on the honor roll and the teachers love him. Don't try to be edgy, kids. Especially if you plan to use your school's "summer fun" hashtag. The absurd part is the punishment.
#15 A Real-Life Tina Belcher
Dad here with a daughter in elementary school. She's all about YouTube. I assumed most kids are these days. She normally watches Minecraft videos, but one day I decided to search her history out of curiosity. To my horror, she was searching GUYS KISSING BUTTS.
#16 Body Image Issues
I found a search for "weight loss." It bothered the hell out of me as I've always tried to instill good body image. She is by no means overweight, she was going through the "baby fat" stage. We started having conversations about the importance of being healthy and exercising, but also to be comfortable with the body we have. She has since stretched out but man, I looked for any red flags, just in case. Her mom was a bulimic and I didn't want her to repeat that.
#17 Going Viral
I don't know what it is, but I'm willing to bet it's something I disapprove of. My 15-year-old happily announces he "went viral," because his comment amassed 1.5K likes. "What did you say?" I ask. "...I forgot." I'd follow up with, "What's your username then?" He'd say, "...I can't tell you." Like, why did mention it then?
#18 Bad Bellydancer
I found my stepdaughter’s Musical.ly account. She had a bunch of poor attempts at provocative belly dancing to various Evanescence songs.
#19 Sketchy Usernames
Not a parent, but some of my students (7th and 8th grade) ask to add me on Instagram. The worst username I’ve come across is “bootywarrior13." I don’t ever add them, and my account is private. I never give them my handle because I don’t want them to find me, but if they do, I decline the follow anyway.
#20 An Odd Interest
One time, when my brother was, like, seven or eight years old, we walked in on him searching "poop" on Google images. He was definitely too young for anything overly suspicious, and I think he was just bored and thought it would be funny. He's a pretty weird kid, so it kind of made sense.
#21 Pretty Tame
Glad it wasn't worse:
"Girl and boy hold hands."
"Girl and boy kiss."
"Girl and boy kiss on the bed a lot."
"Sofia the First, episode 12."
#22 Recommended Videos
I had a coworker bring in her kid during the summer so that she could run him to the local middle school for football practice when she took her break. Since I was in training at the time, I was sitting with her at her desk and mine was not in use.
To keep him occupied, I'd log into my computer and then she'd pull up YouTube so he could watch the "Watch me Whip" song. Apparently, kids will watch that stuff for hours.
Well, one day she goes over to check in on him and says in a confused voice "Who the heck is Ed Gein?" It turned out that it was still logged into my YouTube profile, where I had taken to watching documentaries about criminals. The kid had clicked on one of the recommended videos.
#23 Child-Like Parents
The weirdest thing so far was having to sit down and have a talk with my mother about how some things on Facebook are not real. My extended family lives in Houston and during Hurricane Harvey, my mother was driving my elderly relatives to hysteria by emailing them horribly photoshopped pictures of Houston landmarks submerged under 50 feet of water.
She'd caption the images with: "It's a biblical flood, the world is ending, the news is lying to you, and you're not going to make it if you don't get in your car and try to drive out of town right now." I talked to my stepdad and made him give me her password so I can shut down her account during the next natural disaster.
#24 MySpace Drama
My daughters are grown up now, but when one of them was around 14 or 15, I opened up her MySpace page. She was telling all these kids that her mother (that would be me) was neglectful and I didn't like her. At the time, I was pregnant with twins, working full-time and my husband was gone with the Marines a lot. Even with all of that on my hands, I never once neglected her
Obviously, we had a long talk. She was feeling left out with all the excitement over the babies. Still, though, it was pretty hurtful. It took me a long time to get over that.
#25 Audible Tweets
When Twitter became popular, my son was about five or six years old. He came up with a way to tweet vocally. Throughout the day, he would say things like, “Going to play with my trains. Tweet! Tweet!” And “Bacon for breakfast. Tweet! Tweet!” I was sad when he stopped doing it.
#26 Going Incognito
When I was 11 my mom asked me one day about some google searches on the family computer, including “Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.” I blamed it on the babysitter and somehow convinced my brother to back me up. A couple of years later, I was caught searching "a picture of a girl in a bikini” but I wasn’t able to blame it on anyone this time around. I’ve since discovered the Incognito tab...
#27 Natural Prankster
My son is not on social media, but once I got a voicemail from his principal about him pulling his pants down and farting in another child's face.
#28 Oh No, Not Santa
We got my young daughter a tablet last Christmas. A couple of days later I went to look something up, and the search bar history had one entry: "Is Santa Claus real?"
#29 Smart Kid
I got a phone call from a tech school, asking for my then seven-year-old son. As his mom, I asked why she was calling my son, having explained his age. She explained that he went online and filled out the application to enroll. I spoke with the boy and he said he saw no point in continuing his elementary education when there was a tech school he could attend. He wanted a job, not school. He couldn't understand why he couldn't go to tech school and enter the workforce.
#30 Caught In A Lie
As a kid, I can tell you my parents have found a lot of absurd stuff on my social media. I remember this one time a boy drove me home from a party instead of a girl, so I created this whole fake conversation where a girl took me home instead... My mom eventually found out that it was fake because she saw a confirmation email between me and the girl about the fake conversation.
#31 Robot Takeover
My son is 1. The best thing I’ve ever found on his Google search was “attractive robot ladies.” Even better? It led to a political site that had an article about men being afraid women would be replaced by robots.
#32 The Birth Of A Meme
Not on my kids' social media, but on my brother's. It was a post about how he walked past my son's room and saw him sitting in the dark eating grapes. Apparently, my kid said something like "Don't ask."
It got REALLY popular on Tumblr, and I've even seen it screenshotted and making the rounds on Facebook. The real story is that he was in trouble and he was supposed to be in time out, but he was eating grapes instead.
#33 Wanting To Be Helpful
After the recent hurricanes, my daughter must have been watching YouTube videos of the aftermath. I found her YouTube comments where she was telling anyone who was displaced to come up to Canada and stay with us because we have snowstorms but no hurricanes. She even left our address. We had some serious conversations after about telling strangers where we live, but the sentiment behind it was just so innocent.
#34 A Very Specific Search Query
Not a parent, but my seven-year-old sister had a YouTube search that read: “people in thongs kissing.” So my parents set some controls and realized she was... curious.
#35 Play Store Searches
My four-year-old has a tablet that he likes playing games on and he searches for new games using voice search. One day, he came to me out of frustration and asked if I could download a specific game for him that his brother had. When I went into the Play Store search bar, the drop-down search history read: "games that bubba has." I laughed so damn hard! The struggles of a preschooler these days...
#36 Classic Moon Prank
Yesterday, a friend of mine received a message from his mother reprimanding him for a photo of him that she found clearly showing his face, as well as his butt sticking out of a car window.
#37 "Damon Is 11"
My kids started a potential YouTube fiasco titled "Damon is 11" in which my daughter records as she runs after my son asking him how old he is. I heard them describing the game to the cousins. I had to call it off because the idiot acts were getting out of control. One video was funny one time because my daughter tripped and fell as she chased him. The camera went flying and everything.
#38 Holy Meme
My son at 10 years old. He decided to create a meme: "God loves you so much that he created the afterlife just in case you don't love him back." It had me rolling on the floor laughing. His bible-clutching grandma, however, was not impressed... Not impressed at all.
#39 Minecraft Soap Opera
My kids don't have social media, but I looked at my youngest's tablet and on YouTube, he had watched this Minecraft themed soap opera show. The title was: "Diary of my Minecraft Girlfriend" or something similar. What a NERD! I love him though.
#40 Too Young For That
My little brother, 16, just got his first somewhat serious girlfriend. He's known her for about three months, and they've been officially a thing for about three or four weeks. On his Facebook messenger account, I found that at some point within the three weeks they've been going out, they had a professional couples photoshoot done. It honestly looked like the sort of photos that would announce an engagement. I've never experienced a feeling like what I did when I saw those pictures.
#41 A White Lie For Clout
My son keeps telling people on the Internet that I invented peanut butter and graham cracker sandwiches... It's just not true.
#42 "Just For Fun"
The 12-year-old girl I nannied for made an account with eHarmony, "just for fun." She put her age as 22 and didn't realize she would be getting actual emails from actual adult men. That's when I made my first rule of internet usage for kids: if you have to lie about your age on the internet, you need permission to be there.
#43 Lipsyncing To Rick Astley
I’m not a parent, but I have a 10-year-old cousin who I found on YouTube. He makes videos of himself lip-syncing to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
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#44 Political Podcast
To my surprise, my kid has his own podcast where he talks about politics. He knows a lot more than I. He has three thousand followers and I'd say he's doing pretty well for himself. Doesn't make any money though.
#45 Pro Study Tips
My 12-year-old son searched for “pro study tips." No joke. My son. Trying to study harder. Never in a million years and lives would I have expected this.