How Buffy The Vampire Slayer Accidentally Made Internet History
Everybody knows that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show that set the early internet on fire…it spawned endless online debates (some of which are still going) and even led to the invention of the popular site TVTropes. However, what even some of the show’s biggest fans don’t know is that this series made internet history in the weirdest possible way. You see, the Buffy episode “Help” was the first time that the word “Google” was used on television as a verb.
Google It
In order to contextualize Buffy’s historic use of the word “Google,” we need to first recap the episode itself. The Season 7 episode “Help” has Buffy trying to settle into her new job as a school counselor when she encounters a student (Cassie) who predicts her own death. When some of the student’s other predictions begin to come true, Buffy and her friends do their best to save the kid from a seemingly predestined death.
As usual, the Scooby Gang spends a fair amount of time researching this matter, beginning with perusing Cassie’s medical records. When they don’t find anything unusual, Buffy’s friend Willow asks, “Have you googled her yet?” Nobody made a big deal about this moment at the time (either in the show or in real life), but this was the first time the name of the search engine had been used as a verb in television history.
Explaining How Search Engines Work
Of course, Buffy is a very comedic show, so the episode used Willow’s Google question as an opportunity for a bit of humor. When Willow asks if Buffy has tried “googling” Cassie, Xander immediately replies, “Willow, she’s 17.” This gives brainy Willow a chance to explain to her friends (and to general audiences, considering the episode came out in 2002) that Google was the name of a search engine.
The Crew Created A Website
Incidentally, many hardcore Buffy fans were very internet-savvy, which arguably makes Willow’s explanation of what Google is a bit unnecessary. What was more impressive at the time was that the characters found the student’s website (www.cassienewton.com), one that the production crew recreated in real life. The site eventually went down, but you can still check out a version of it on the Wayback Machine to see some weird poetry, weirder art, and (best of all) decades-old comments made by fans who signed the virtual guestbook.
Buffy Was A Pioneer
In many ways, Buffy’s use of Google as a verb revealed what a tastemaker this show really was, even in its final season. Months after “Help” aired in 2002, the American Dialect Society voted “to Google” as that year’s most useful new word. Nowadays, hearing Willow casually use the term “googled” makes Buffy, a show that feels dated in many ways, feel remarkably fresh.
Not Everything Has Aged Well
While completely unintentional, the final season of Buffy using the word “Google” like this is a striking reminder of how technology evolved alongside the show. In the first season, Buffy has a famous quote, “if the apocalypse comes, beep me,” one that makes the show feel impossible ancient in a world filled with cellphones. By the final season, though, the show was responsible for introducing countless fans to a cutting-edge new search engine.
Let’s hope that if the Buffy remake ever happens, they avoid referencing Google or any other search engines. Because if I hear a Slayer advertise herself by saying “if the apocalypse comes, Bing me,” I might just root for the demons to hurry up and kill everyone.
