The use of breadcrumbing in the context of online dating hit the popular consciousness in the past year or so, but is in fact not the first metaphorical interpretation of the word in the digital era. In the late nineties, breadcrumbing began to be used as a way of referring to the now familiar representation sometimes displayed when navigating a website, which shows the path of web pages a person has visited (e.g. home >> gift store >> books >> shopping trolley). Both earlier and later uses are based on the idea of ‘leaving a trail’, taking inspiration from the classic fairytale of Hansel and Gretel, who left a trail of breadcrumbs to help them find their way out of the forest.