After a week, our post rose to the front page of Google when you searched “Rob Delaney.” And then the ABC-owned Kimmel clip magically vanished. It was nowhere to be found online.

We were more than a little confused. Did Jimmy Kimmel pull the clip to save face? Or was Delaney—a man who made his name on the Internet—actually trying to scrub any trace of an embarrassing, public moment from the vast recesses of the Web? Daniel Tosh thought the same and, on his show last week, mentioned that Delaney had pulled the set. Which spawned a spur of angry Tweets directed at Delaney, who never responded.

Rob Delaney was so embarrassed by himself that he got his Kimmel set completely removed from the Internet, well not completely #ihaveit — Ryder paramore (@TheNamesRyder) March 7, 2013

Rob Delaney’s stand up on Jimmy Kimmel’s show is proof that a quasi-funny person on twitter makes for a terribly awkward person in real life — Beau Bailey (@thebeaubailey) March 8, 2013

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Why am I just hearing about this Rob Delaney epic fail on Jimmy Kimmel from a few weeks back? Apparently all video traces are gone? — Josh O'Brien (@josh_obrien) March 6, 2013

Meanwhile other copies of the set were deleted as soon as they were uploaded to YouTube.

It's like a car accident! Cant look away RT @quartermass Rob Delaney bombing hard on Kimmel youtube.com/watch?v=439YX0… — Bryan Cooper (@bcoopa) March 6, 2013

A post dedicated to the phenomenon popped up today on the subreddit R/cringe: Its title? “Rob delaney (twitter celebrity) has a horrible set on kimmel. He is now trying to delete all traces of this video off the Internet. Hurry and watch!” The Redditor linked to a copy currently being hosted on MetaTube, which you can watch here.

The set is bad. Really bad. But you know what's worse? An artist censoring any evidence of public failure. Especially one who, we thought, understood how the Internet works.

We've reached out and left a voicemail with a press agent for Kimmel's show, asking what the policy is for pulling clips online. We'll update if anyone calls back.

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