Results: When Life Imitates (B)Art
Published on 02/13/2017
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1.
1.
As hard as it may be for some people to believe that Donald Trump is actually President Of The United States, almost seventeen years earlier The Simpsons predicted that fact in an episode called "Bart to the Future," which originally aired in March 2000. In the episode, Lisa Simpson is set to become the U.S. president tasked with restoring order and repairing the nation in the wake of what the show presents as a disastrous presidency left by her predecessor, a fictionalized Trump. Ideally that's where The Simpsons accuracy ends, because in the cartoon, Trump's presidency caused "quite a budget crunch" that ultimately bankrupt the nation. Do you remember seeing this episode?
Yes
18%
385 votes
No
82%
1757 votes
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The Simpsons actually has an eerie ability to predict the future. They predicted Bengt Holmström of MIT would win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2016, which he did, predicted Apple Watches, and foretold that the Rolling Stones would still be touring in 2016. Here are a few more predictions that first aired on The Simpsons episodes. Which of these do you remember?
Faulty voting machines — Season 20,Episode 4, 2008 -- showed Homer trying to vote for Barack Obama in the US general election, but a faulty machine changed his vote. Four years later, a voting machine in Pennsylvania had to be removed after it kept changing people's votes for Barack Obama to ones for his Republican rival Mitt Romney.
13%
279 votes
Ebola outbreak — Season 9, Episode 3, 1997 -- predicted the 2014 outbreak of Ebola 17 years before it happened. In a scene from the episode Marge suggests a sick Bart read a book titled Curious George and the Ebola Virus. The virus wasn't particularly widespread in the 1990s, but years later it was the top of the news agenda.
13%
274 votes
Robotic librarians — Season 6, Episode 19, 1995 -- In Lisa's Wedding, we discover that librarians have been replaced with robots. More than 20 years later, robotics students from the University of Aberystwyth built a prototype for a walking library robot, while scientists in Singapore have begin testing their own robot librarians
9%
188 votes
Horsemeat scandal — Season 5, Episode 19, 1994 -- Lunchlady Doris used assorted horse parts to make lunch for students at Springfield Elementary. Nine years later, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland found horse DNA in over one-third of beefburger samples from supermarkets and ready meals, and pig in 85% of them.
10%
214 votes
Siegfried and Roy tiger attack — Season 5, Episode 10, 1993 -- parodied entertainers Siegfried & Roy in a 1993 episode called $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalised Gambling). During the episode, the magicians are viciously mauled by a trained white tiger while performing in a casino. In 2003, Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy was attacked during a live performance by Montecore, one of their white tigers. Roy lived but sustained severe injuries in the attack.
13%
271 votes
Letter from The Beatles — Season 2, Episode 18, 1991 -- an episode saw The Beatles' Ringo Star diligently answering fan mail that had been written decades ago. In September 2013, two Beatles fans from Essex received a reply from Paul McCartney to a letter and recording they sent to the band 50 years ago. The recording was sent to a London theatre the band was due to play at but was found years later in a car boot sale by a historian.
8%
180 votes
The censorship of Michelangelo's David — Season 2, Episode 9, 1990 -- in Itchy and Scratchy and Marge, Springfieldians protested against Michelangelo's statue of David being exhibited in the local museum, calling the artwork obscene for its nudity. The satire of censorship came true in July 2016, when Russian campaigners voted on whether to clothe a copy of the Renaissance statue that had been set up in central St Petersburg.
8%
171 votes
Three-eyed fish — Season 2, Episode 4, 1990 -- Bart catches a three-eyed fish named Blinky in the river by the power plant, which makes local headlines. More than a decade later, a three-eyed fish was discovered in a reservoir in Argentina. Strangely enough, the reservoir itself was fed by water from a nuclear power plant.
15%
317 votes
Don't remember any of these episodes
13%
285 votes
Did not watch the show
55%
1171 votes
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Maybe it's not so much predicting as it is life imitating art. And it would not be the first time this has happened throughout history. If you've ever read George Orwell's 1984, you know exactly what this means. Here are just a few of the many strangely familiar topics 1984 touched on. Which of these sounds familiar in this day and age?
Two-way televisions called telescreens are used for entertainment and are found in the everyone's home but they simultaneously watch your every move. The screens pick up both video and audio, making it impossible to do anything without the fictional government seeing.
20%
430 votes
Newspeak, the totalitarian rule has gone so far as to create a completely new language with the purpose of confusing and persuading it's citizens.
16%
344 votes
In Orwell's novel there are three sovereign nations: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. At any given moment, two nations are at war. The fighting is continuous. But when a new battle arises, everyone forgets about the past wars and alliances and focuses on the battle at hand, leaving the world in perpetual turmoil.
15%
319 votes
The proles are a group of workers who are overtly happy because they are clueless. Big Brother (the watchful eye of Ingsoc) doesn't bother the proles because they do not complain or cause trouble, as long as they are fed. The proles symbolize mindless followers of the working class.
15%
316 votes
The small group of rebellious outcasts, called the Brotherhood vehemently opposes the party. They meet in secret, pass around literature, and plot to overthrow. Although Big Brother paints the group as sinister, they are actually just activists fighting for basic human liberties.
15%
313 votes
None
23%
487 votes
Do not know enough about 1984 to answer
43%
913 votes
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Sometimes it may even just be a mind-boggling coincidence when real life mirrors fiction. Here are a few interesting "coincidences". How many have you heard about?
Breaking Bad, the TV series which started in 2008 is about a man named Walter White who first becomes a meth cook and then a drug kingpin after being diagnosed with cancer. Around the same time it premiered there was a real life Walter White, who was a meth cook and was convicted for the similar issue.
13%
272 votes
In RoboCop 2 the city of Detroit is forced to declare bankruptcy and many of its services were contracted to private firms. The exact same thing happened actually over a year later in the real city of Detroit.
15%
317 votes
In 2000 Proof Of Life, starring Russel Crowe and Meg Ryan was released which was centered around a high profile kidnapping case. During the promotion of the film Crowe was actually targeted for kidnapping. The case was so serious that FBI and Scotland Yard was involved and provided protection for Crowe.
8%
165 votes
The British show House Of Cards which is based on a novel, follows the British politics after the fall of Margaret Thatcher from power. The shocking fact is that Margaret Thatcher resigned in actual life one year after the release of the novel and shortly after BBC miniseries was first broadcasted.
8%
171 votes
None
70%
1500 votes
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5.
Here are a few more incidents of life imitating art. Any that you knew about?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the most famous detective of all times Sherlock Holmes, once saved two men through becoming an off-the-book detective inspired by his own character Sherlock Holmes!! He proved the innocence of George Edalji by carefully deducing that the crime was committed by butcher's son. And in second case he produced evidence in front of the judge which completely overturned the conviction.
9%
199 votes
The musical duo, Zager and Evans, wrote a song In the year 2525 in 1964 and released it in 1968. In this song they talked about test tube babies. Test tube babies were not a reality till 1978, one decade after the release of the song
14%
308 votes
Electronic ankle bracelets are used on parolees to keep a check on them. The invention of this electronic bracelet looks like the work of a hard working scientist. In fact, is the invention of a children's comic book. It was first used in a Spiderman comic book, from which a judge took this idea and made these ankle bracelets a reality
12%
259 votes
None
73%
1553 votes
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