"I've many a time tried to the impossible task of washing away the memory of a sight that should never been seen. And let me tell you this: Febreeze in the eyes only brings more pain."
— Red Mage, 8-Bit Theater
A character has just witnessed something so icky, so unsettling, so horrific, so weird, that they must express their strong disapproval. This Is Wrong on So Many Levels! that a simple "That's gross" won't suffice — only Brain Bleach can make things right.
The character informs the world that the continued knowledge of this subject is an unbearable affront to their sanity. They will not be at peace until they can remove their brain from their skull, scrub the offending mental image out with steel wool and mental floss, then disinfect the entire area with bleach (disinfecting their eyes or ears with fire is optional).
In the sporking/MST/mocking community, there exists a derivative named Bleeprin which is a mixture of industrial-strength Brain Bleach and Aspirin — Aspirin against the headache, Brain Bleach against the Badfic. Also Bleepka, which combines Brain Bleach and vodka. Its application is obvious.
Will probably be necessary after seeing No Yay, Glurge, Fetish Retardant, a Gainax Ending, a Shock Site, Rule 34, Squick, or Fan Disservice (among many other things), or hearing Too Much Information. Often the result of Schmuck Bait, so always remember that You Do NOT Want to Know can be a helpful warning. It can also be in play for either side of Caught in Embarrassing Act, both the one(s) caught and those who caught them.
A Super-Trope to Screaming at Squick. Sometimes goes hand-in-hand with Nausea Fuel and Lost My Appetite. (Or going to lose it, if the victim has already eaten.)
Compare with Scrubbing Off the Trauma (characters try to scrub away their guilt, disgust, or trauma), I Need a Freaking Drink (when characters want to get too blitzed to remember what they've seen), Kill It with Fire, These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, Too Much Information, Schmuck Bait, or even its auditory cousin (Ear Worm).
For a literal application of this trope ("scrubbing" memories from the mind), see Laser-Guided Amnesia or Self-Inflicted Amnesia (although those tropes usually aren't applied as a remedy for Squick). Despite the similar name, not to be confused with Brainwashed and related tropes.
In-Universe Examples Only:
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Literature
- Films – Live-Action
- Live-Action TV
- Video Games
- Web Animation
- Webcomics
- Western Animation
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Advertising
- Ragu commercial featured a kid walking in on his parents, learning a valuable lesson about knocking.
- Clorox: For life's bleachable
moments.
- In this Folgers commercial, a woman opens the shower curtain with her bathrobe open to surprise her husband. When she finds her father-in-law with an unidentified man washing his back instead, she goes downstairs to "take a minute to clear [her] head" with Folgers coffee.
Card Games
- This card from Magic: The Gathering is a creature which acts as Brain Bleach for its master.
Comic Strips
- Dilbert: This strip.
"Only death can release me!"
- Doonesbury: The July 24, 2016 Sunday strip shows the entire ensemble struck dumb with horror at the outcome of the Republican National Convention,note until:
Kim: How do we unwatch that?
Mike: We can't. We take it to our graves. - The August 17, 2023 strip of Garfield has Garfield watch a movie titled Santa's Summer Vacation.
Garfield: That man should not wear a swimsuit!
- In the first annual of Hack/Slash: The Series, Chris notes that the idea of the Suicide Girls is giving him a Raging Stiffie. Cassie notes that after their call, she is going to see if anyone has invented "mind bleach".
- In Pearls Before Swine, Pig and Rat are contemplating why their neighbor, Cyclist Jeff, always spandex, concluding it flatters the human body. At that very moment, Stephan appears in spandex, proudly announcing he's taking up cycling, much to the horror of Pig and Rat.
Pig: My eyes can't unsee that!
Stephan: If only Staci could see me now.
Rat: Are you cycling with child? - In Scary Gary, Leopold is quite dismayed when he finds out his memory eraser cannot make him forget the details of Gary’s underwear problems.
Leopold: (To Owen) IT’S NOT POWERFUL ENOUGH!
- Zits:
- There's a moment like this in one strip where a bored Jeremy complains that "nothing ever happens around here," which prompts his dad to take his shirt off and dance around (all 300-some pounds of him) singing, "Shake your bon-bon!" Afterward, Jeremy goes to wash his eyeballs out.
- In another example, Jeremy peeks around the corner only to catch his mother in a leotard practicing for her Zumba dance class (with her boobs jiggling in the air). He promptly asks his dad if there's a way to erase an image burned into his retina.
- And the time his mother commented on Stairway to Heaven, which he was strumming on his guitar: his parents had that song playing when he was conceived. Cue Jeremy with his head under the tap, running hot water into his ear.
- This happened to his mom too in one strip. After she commented that a song he was listening to was "catchy", he showed her the lyrics. In the final panel, he told his dad, "I'm grounded for buying a CD and Mom is at church for liking it."
Fan Works
Films — Animation
- Hotel Transylvania (2012) has Dracula see what's the most disgusting thing to him ever: someone putting their fingers on their eyes. This happens when Johnny tries to remove his contact lenses after suggesting that they could have made him immune to Dracula's hypnosis.
Music
- "Weird Al" Yankovic: "My Own Eyes" is a List Song of all the bizarre and horrifying sights that the singer wishes that he could unsee, such as a pair of drag queens stuffing crackers up each other's noses, a fat man who sold his own skeleton to a pawn shop, a mime being murdered with an imaginary cleaver, and a child's lemonade stand that also sells weapons-grade plutonium (although he admits that their lemonade was actually really good).
Myths & Religion
- In the Greek tragedy Oedipus the King, when Oedipus learned that he had murdered the King on the road before marrying the Queen, oh, and also that they're his mom and dad, which means his kids are the product of incest, he literally gouged out his own eyes in horror on finding her dead by her own hand (using the pin used to secure his cloak, no less), and then went Walking the Earth to atone for what he had done, making this Older Than Feudalism.
- Hermes would've wanted some after catching Hades and Persephone in the act in the Homeric Hymn To Demeter.
- There's also nepenthe, which really is Brain Bleach.
- This is the express purpose of the waters of the river Lethe — to utterly remove one's memories of their past life.
- At the siege of Thebes, Athena is just about to bring Tydeus immortality, when she finds him chewing on the brains of the guy he just killed. Before she can go back home, she has to scrub her brain out with a ceremonial fire of purification and water from a special river. Needless to say, no immortality for you, Tydeus.
Podcasts
- The MST3K tradition continues on in RiffTrax.
- For example, in the RiffTrax of Attack of the Clones, Kevin tells Mike during the Greasy Spoon scene regarding slovenly cook Dexter, "Mike, I invite you to think about his underpants." Mike understandably reacts in horror: "Why, Kevin?!" Kevin subverts the trope by telling him that so long as he's thinking about Dexter's underpants, he's forgetting the rest of the movie. Mike's response. "(sigh of relief) You're right. Ah, his underpants..."
- From watching Ross Hagen having "brain sex" (It Makes Sense in Context) in Wonder Women:
Kevin: You know, when I got here today, I didn't expect to see THE MOST VOMIT-INDUCING THING EVER COMMITTED TO FILM!!!
- While watching Star Trek: Generations, when they first see the Duras sisters and their Cleavage Window, Kevin muses if they're seeing the only hairless portions of their breasts, prompting Mike to scream in bloody horror.
Theatre
- Oedipus from Oedipus Rex gouges out his own eyes after finding out that his wife is actually his mother.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney:
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations has Jean Armstrong rubbing lotion on himself. It elicits a call for brain bleach by Phoenix.
- Prior to that:
Phoenix: So the particular feature you recognize about the waitress is... her outfit!? But anyone could wear just such a uniform! Even me!
Judge: Mr. Wright! Please spare the court of any further mental anguish from that image. - And in case 5, we have this gem:
Phoenix: It's so inappropriate. Like Sister Bikininote in a bikini! [shudder] ...I've gotta think of the kittens...
- In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, after learning that there's a panty thief going around Apollo has a mental image of Plum Kitaki's bloomers. Understandably, he's not happy about it.
- Not as egregious as the above, but still to some extent: Sal Manella describing how he "wolfed down a T-bone steak", complete with his most disturbing animation◊ prompts Phoenix some clearly unpleasant thoughts.
Phoenix: (A mental image I will carry with me to my grave...)
- In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, Edgeworth proposes that an 11-year-old Athena killed her mother, then had her body moved to the robotic operating table where it would be disassembled to hide the evidence. Phoenix really, really doesn't want this image in his mind.
- Also from Dual Destinies is Phoenix's reaction to Norma DePlume's breakdown, which blows all the buttons off her coat and cuts away just as it's about to open. He even breaks out the rare Despair animation usually reserved for bad endings and Darkest Hours.
Phoenix: That was one Wardrobe Malfunction I did NOT want to see...
- Being a ΔΙΚ: As she tells the MC during the Thanksgiving party in "Calm Before the Snow", poor Jill has a horrified reaction on seeing Tybalt masturbating using a watermelon onto which he has mounted the panties he had accused the MC of stealing from her:
Jill: So, we went upstairs to Tybalt's room to have a chat and the next 20 seconds I would like to have erased from my memory.
MC: What happened?
Jill: Tybalt and his teeny-tiny Tybbie was having intercourse with a fruit I'll never be able to enjoy again. - Shuichi has this reaction in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony to seeing Miu Iruma perform highly suggestive "maintenance" on Kiibo.
- In Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, repeatedly examining a useless bed in one room will cause one of your companions in that room (Snake) to remark on your reasons for becoming obsessed with the bed: "Is it because you're hoping to spend some time in it... with me?" This causes Junpei to remark that that mental image was the last thing he needed at that point in time.
- Mach in SC2VN has this reaction after seeing a Fangirl sniff a player's jacket
- In the sequel, Virtue's Last Reward, Sigma and Alice wish they could forget the sight of a grown man in armour (K) riding a big cute bunny like a little kid.
Web Original
- Chakona Space features Stew discussing having a group of gay characters sire her future children. Her captain, knowing they're not interested in females mentions them chasing after her with a turkey baster.
Stew: Thanks. Now I can't get that image out of my head.
- Protectors of the Plot Continuum features Bleeprin (bleach combined with Aspirin), its variants, and Suebuprofen; they are used to help agents cope with anything disturbing they witness while on missions.
- Jericho's clothing in the Whateley Universe. Jericho is a (sort of) blind deviser who deliberately wears clothing so horrible that people — mutant superpowered people — flee in terror. He hangs with a guy who looks like a humanoid velociraptor, a girl who looks like a naga, monster-girl twins who cast a fear aura, and it's his clothing choices that upset nearby people. He actually manages to cause a guy to vomit just through color choices alone.
- Any Shock Site inspires videos or photographs of reaction videos, mostly of people asking for this.
- Boing Boing follows particularly disturbing posts with a "unicorn chaser."
- SCP Foundation
- The use of "Class A amnestics" is routine for the Foundation, reserved primarily for those who have learned of the Foundation and/or what they deal with on a regular basis. All to maintain the illusion of a safe and sane universe.
- Personnel working with SCP-231-7 are mandated to have regular memory wipes of the truly horrendous things they have to do, to ensure that the Fetus Terrible she carries remains unborn, lest they face the End of Days. Before it became policy, suicide among the personnel was very high.
- Personnel will regularly request amnesiacs after particularly unsettling events, such as witnessing the particularly brutal death of a colleague or watching End of Evangelion. Most requests are denied.
- Most if not all of these amnestics come from SCP-3000. And the way it produces said amnestics certainly requires amnestics.
- Texts from Superheroes: Supergirl searches the city for a bomb with her X-Ray Vision and declares that she needs to "fly through the sun and clean my eyeballs" after seeing some of the things people do behind closed doors.
- TV Tropes: Brain Bleach is available for purchase from the Trope Co. web shop.
Web Videos
- During the review of the live-action Dragonball Evolution Movie, LordKaT shows us how to eat a strawberry seductively.
RolloT: CAN'T UNSEE!!!
- The Funday Pawpet Show:
- This live online puppet show, that runs for 4 hours every Sunday night (6pm-10pm Eastern), has the Pink Flamingo Challenge... where visiting guests' reactions are filmed as they watch the last 5 minutes of the movie "Pink Flamingos." Do NOT ask what they see... but they get bonus points if they can eat anything chocolate while watching without gagging.
- Anything Fred Bedderhead sends in.
- Bad Movie Beatdown: Film Brain is temporarily undone when he sees a dog's nightmare of a cat holding scissors in Monkeybone.
- The Music Video Show in a Michael Jackson episode.
"OH GOD! I CAN'T UNSEE THAT!"
- LoadingReadyRun had a sketch called "Forget About It" which was about Graham getting his brain bleached. It can be seen here.
- Cracked.com says, Tetris can help wash away painful, indelible memories.
- Demyx Time: After Axel discovers that Larxene slept with Xigbar (along with most of the rest of the Organization):
Axel: Xigbar?
Larxene: [nods] Uh-huh.
Axel: Tell you what, I'll be back in about a half an hour, there's some stuff I really, quite desperately need to bleach, so if you would please—
[leaves the room followed by screams of pain] - The Nostalgia Chick and Nella don't react well to gruesome pictures of foot-binding. Also the only way to retain sanity after a viewing of The Star Wars Holiday Special.
- The Cinema Snob:
- From Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) review:
Snob: Wasn't that something? It was a comedically-dubbed rape film. Holy shit! The bath I just took now needs to take a bath!- In his review of A Serbian Film, Brad says it's the only film he regrets watching (and that includes gross Parallel Porn Titles and stuff such as Las Vegas Bloodbath!) and that he "wishes to unsee it, but can't".
- Smosh: One of the challenges in Food Battle 2014 is "hacking device". Anthony misinterprets it as using his rock candy as a cutting tool, all the while Ian uses his pink-frosted sprinkled donut to hack into a computer... finding naked pictures of Anthony and thus pouring bleach on his face.
- Tink in The Guild has this response to Bladezz joking about releasing a sex tape.
- From the Attack of the Clones review by RedLetterMedia: "You know, they make a magic potion that makes you forget about The Phantom Menace when you drink it... it's called bleach!"
- The Best of the Worst guys had a collective disgusted reaction at the sex scene with a puppet worm creature from Dan Clark's film The Item.
- TV Trash: Chris "Rowdy" Moore is sickened at an episode of Striperella for showing a strip club owner's mother getting on stage.
Rowdy: This is why I do reviews on an empty stomach.
- Jon Weber, from the YouTube Series The Punchline has used Brain Bleach in two episodes so far, "Lio" and "In the Bleachers", to cover up disgusting memories from the strips he was reviewing.
- The Media Hunter and several other reviewers need this after watching the scene listed above from his Ace Ventura review.
- Todd in the Shadows, while discussing Flo Rida's "Whistle", points out that with the Double Entendre, the obscenely catchy little whistle is actually Flo Rida's orgasm. Immediately afterwards, he vanishes up to the bathroom, accompanied by a scrubbing sound and cries of "GET IT OFF ME!" Later, at the end of the video, when he finds himself whistling the tune while playing a video game, he gets out a foam baseball bat and hits himself repeatedly in the head.
- In one of the Shadow the Hedgehog episodes of Game Grumps Dan mentions that because he is Jewish and therefore circumcised he doesn't have to deal with smegma. Arin reveals that he does not know what smegma is or at least misunderstands what it is. Dan explains it to him and Arin immediately replies that he wishes he could "unlearn" it.
- The Mysterious Mr. Enter:
- His brain temporarily shuts down during his review of the Family Guy episode, "Fresh Heir", when Chris taught his grandfather how to masturbate and that it was implied that Chris gave him a hand job.
- This is exactly what he said he was going to do after reviewing the Drawn Together movie so he can induce amnesia from reviewing the worst thing he has ever reviewed.
- Outside Xbox: On "Show of the Weekend" for 6th October 2018, Ellen said that after playing Rise of the Tomb Raider, she wanted to have her memories wiped so that she could play it again for the first time. After playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, she just wanted to have her memories wiped.
- Watch Mojo's "Top 10 Most Disturbing Marvel Moments" has this line said about Gwen Stacy's affair with Norman Osborn being depicted through a sex scene with Osborn in his Green Goblin persona:
"If anyone needs us, we'll be scrubbing our eyeballs with soap."
- "Parents Who Got Nosey, What Do You Wish You Didn't See? (Reddit Stories)" is a YouTube compilation of stories from people wishing for "eye bleach", most of which are about people discovering their family members' lube or sex toys or porn stashes or unclean socks/towels or NSFW google search history. One story that's more safe for work is about a mother cleaning her son's room and finding old and rotting apple cores and orange peels under the bed.
- In Mad Because Small, when Baby catches Tsuyu with Gosetsu and Tsuyu tells her she's going to give him a sponge bath, Baby runs out screaming to the heavens.
"MAD BECAUSE SCARRED FOR LIFE!"
- In the Atop the Fourth Wall episode reviewing Youngblood (Image Comics) #7, Linkara yells out in holy terror as he sees the naked view of the character Troll only covered in soap suds before devolving into the "Conbine Harvester" Sanity Slippage routine.
Linkara: Why Liefeld? Why? Why did you do this to me? Is it because you're insulted in the theme song? Not even Gary Bradski pulls that kind of crap! If you wanted to get to me, you didn't have to hurt so many people!
- Other instants of this are scattered through the hundreds of episodes, where various bizarre and horrifying moments in comics with one such moment including a weird fan of Madonna's killing her and putting his head on her body
