What the future holds for us is a mystery, but sometimes we look to people who claim to know a glimpse of what’s to come. Baba Vanga predicted that 2024 would bring a cure for cancer, among other things, while ‘living Nostradamus’ Athos Salomé believes we’ll be able to contact the dead using AI within the next 12 months. However, it is hard to get your head around this next great foreseer of future events: The Simpsons.
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Yes, these yellow animated characters have been acting out seemingly improbable scenarios that miraculously end up happening in real life for years now. The show already predicted Donald Trump becoming the President of America, and even the coronavirus pandemic - which is still affecting people to this day. Now, a handful of these whacky predictions from the past appear to have come true. Let’s take a look.
The Titanic submarine disaster
Earlier this year, five people got on a submarine that was set to visit the Titanic wreck at the bottom of the ocean. Tragically, the Titan submersible imploded on itself, killing everyone onboard. A Simpsons episode, Homer’s Paternity Coot, from 2006 has a bizarrely similar story. Homer goes on a ‘treasure tour’ in the ocean and is reunited with his long-lost father. The pair then go searching for a sunken ship, mirroring the father-son duo who were passengers on the Titan. At one point, disaster strikes: the control panel on their vehicle flashes with a ‘low oxygen’ sign, then an ‘oxygen gone’ sign.
Unsurprisingly, Homer does not die in this episode. He wakes up in hospital a few days later and lives to eat another donut. However, the similarities to the real-life disaster that shook the world in June 2023 are striking.
Barbie
It has been hard to miss the Barbie bonanza that has painted the world pink in 2023. Margot Robbie’s masterpiece is now the highest grossing movie ever made on a budget under $150m. But something similar happened in the Simpsons’ world back in 1994. The episode was called Lisa vs Maliby Stacy, which gives you a good idea as to where we are going with this.
In the show, Lisa challenges the creators of Malibu Stacy doll to re-think their image, and come up with a doll which had more of a feminist edge. Sounding familar? Well, Greta Gerwig - who co-wrote and directed the film - did much the same thing this year with Barbie.
In the Simpsons episode, which was inspired by Mattel’s 1992 doll Teen Talk Barbie, the doll drew a whole lot of media attention. In it, a newsreader is urged by his daughter to talk about the new doll, Lisa Lionheart, designed by Lisa and Malibu Stacy creator Stay Lovell. He talks about it on air for much longer than intended, mirroring the attention Barbie drew in 2023.
Trump’s arrest
Trump has featured a lot in the show, which has made several calls about his future that ended up coming true. Previously, it correctly foresaw him running for a 2024 election campaign, but in the same Lisa vs Malibu Stacy episode his arrest is also - albeit a little vaguely - predicted.
When the newsreader fishes his gushing over Lisa’s doll, he ends with a random:
Oh and the president was arrested.
In the show, the President is unnamed and arrested for murder. So, a bit of a far cry from Trump’s legal issues, but the outcome remains accurate.
There we have it: this show is may be on to something. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in 2024 to find out whether or not these yellow seers will once again be right.
Read more:
⋙ ‘Living Nostradamus’ makes chilling 2024 predictions
⋙ Will China take over the world? These are Nostradamus' predictions for 2024
Sources used:
Metro: Absolutely wild The Simpsons predictions that came true in 2023
BBC: Titan sub implosion: What we know about catastrophic event
