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4[[quoteright:350:[[Franchise/{{Tintin}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/moonlandings_2.png]]]]
5[[caption-width-right:350:Sorry, UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} — Tintin got there [[Recap/TintinExplorersOnTheMoon almost twenty years earlier]]!]]
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10
11->''"As far as I know, the first suggestion in the scientific literature about terraforming the planets was made in a 1961 article I wrote about Venus. [...] The idea was soon taken up by a number of science fiction authors in the continuing dance between science and science fiction - in which the science stimulates the fiction, and the fiction stimulates a new generation of scientists, a process benefiting both genres."''
12-->-- '''Creator/CarlSagan''', ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot_(book) Pale Blue Dot]]''
13
14Creator/LeonardoDaVinci didn't ''invent'' the helicopter, but he did pioneer a concept for one.
15
16Throw enough hypothetical inventions and scenarios out into the world and the chances are that some of them will eventually become reality. Some were ideas waiting to happen: even our stone age ancestors could see from birds that flying was possible. Some ideas required a bit more imagination. Either way, life has imitated art.
17
18A SuperTrope to {{Defictionalization}}, which is deliberately doing this as part of merchandising. Compare TheRedStapler, which is when art affects the popularity of something. Contrast TruthInTelevision, RippedFromTheHeadlines, and RealLifeWritesThePlot..
19
20If the art's creator genuinely had no clue what they were talking about, but was proven correct regardless, see AccidentallyCorrectWriting. If the idea was portrayed in the original work as an absurd impossibility, see NotSoCrazyAnymore.
21
22Not to be confused with ArtInitiatesLife, which describes artistic pieces ''literally'' coming to life. Compare ArtImitatesArt.
23----
24!!Examples Subpages:
25[[index]]
26* LifeImitatesArt/LiveActionTV
27** ''LifeImitatesArt/BlackMirror''
28*** ''LifeImitatesArt/BlackMirrorNosedive''
29** ''LifeImitatesArt/StarTrek''
30[[/index]]
31
32!!Other Examples:
33
34[[foldercontrol]]
35
36[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
37* The Gundam Wiki gives us this gem concerning the [[MinovskyPhysics Minovsky Particle]] (emphasis added):
38-->''The disruption of electromagnetic radiation is due to the small lattice of the I-field creating fringes that long wavelengths cannot penetrate, and that diffract wavelengths that have similar distance with the fringes. This diffraction and polarization process disrupts the electromagnetic waves. '''Notice in real life there is a similar experimental particle that could do the same thing in few thousandth of a second, which is still not practical but proves the theory to be correct.'''
39* The first episode of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' aired on 7th April 1979. In one of the opening scenes, [[ColonyDrop an artificial space colony was shifted out of orbit, fell to Earth and destroyed the city of Sydney in Australia]]. On 11th July 1979, scarcely three months later, the American space station Skylab left orbit and reentered Earth's atmosphere; it was scheduled to land in the South Atlantic, but instead the majority of the station's debris struck Australia.
40* In ''Anime/GundamBuildFightersTry'', it's revealed that the Build Burning Gundam Gunpla was hidden inside a Dom. [[http://www.gundamkitscollection.com/2014/10/custom-build-1144-dom-x-build-burning.html Then, people revealed that, with a bit of work, you can actually fit an actual Build Burning Gunpla inside a Dom Gunpla!]] It got to the point where Gunpla stores had to put signs by their Dom/Rick-Dom Gunpla specifically stating that the models ''do not'' come with a free Build Burning Gundam!
41* From ''Manga/HajimeNoIppo'', Ichiro Miyata's [[SignatureMove Jolt Counter]] was actually used in a real boxing title match by [[http://youtu.be/HtjSckoZ6R0?t=3m59s Juan Manuel Marquez to defeat Manny Pacquiao in six rounds.]]
42* The second series of 1983's ''[[Anime/MiimuIroiroYumeNoTabi Meme Iroiro Yume no Tabi]]'' is set in a future world a few decades ahead. It looks much the same, but everyone's using a new technology called the "Information Network System" to communicate, watch videos and listen to music, order stuff, and get information about almost anything.
43* ''Anime/PrettyCure'':
44** ''Anime/HealinGoodPrettyCure'' is a series about medicine and staying healthy where the villains use disease-related powers. It wound up being released on the heels of the Coronavirus outbreak. Even worse, a news report on said outbreak preceded the original airing of the second episode.
45*** Another main theme in this show involves saving the Earth from danger. When episode 5 premiered, most affiliates displayed [[https://twitter.com/iyo16/status/1233940876981719040?s=20 a superimposed earthquake warning]] regarding the occurrence of [[https://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/20200229234906495-01084615.html a minor earthquake in Nambu]] when the villains showed up to use their powers to steal one of the element spirits. Another warning of this sort played on a re-run of the first episode during the scene in which the Flower Element is captured,[[note]]Unlike the first time this happened, only Me-Tele in Nagoya showed this banner.[[/note]] which later turned out to be the foreshock [[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/04/26/national/magnitude-48-earthquake-tokyo-japan/ to a larger than usual earthquake]] (ironically, the warning banner for that earthquake showed up on fellow ''Nichi Asa Kids Time'' series ''Series/MashinSentaiKiramager''). And then [[https://twitter.com/kinauri_hana/status/1279558698671542272 an earthquake warning]] [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200705194131/https://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/20200704232923395-05082651.html regarding the Tokai region]] showed up on episode 14.
46** During the original broadcast of Episode 43 of ''Anime/TropicalRougePrettyCure'', Japan's Pacific coast was hit by a tsunami after an underwater volcano eruption, showing this [[https://i.imgur.com/cnwWHZW.png map throughout the episode]] alongside others. Incidentally enough, an apocalypse was involved, which in the following episode, featured heavy rain and hurricanes throughout the planet.
47[[/folder]]
48
49[[folder:Comic Books]]
50* ''ComicStrip/SpiderMan'':
51** Electronic tagging such as ankle bracelets used to track prisoners. Developed by a judge in 1979 based on a ''ComicStrip/SpiderMan'' newspaper strip from the same year, involving the Kingpin.
52** In 1962, ''Amazing Spider-Man'' #1 introduces Empire State University, Peter's school in New York City. Nine years later, New York's state university system established the real-life Empire State University, which now has several locations in New York City as well.
53* Creator/CarlBarks has done this at least twice. He made up a method to raise sunken ships with ping pong balls, which was later successfully used. The guy who did it [[http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/priorart/donaldduck/ was unable to patent the technique]] because of Barks' story. In a different comic, he [[http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/01/25/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-87/ drew a molecule]] and described some of its reactions ''nineteen years'' before it was discovered by scientists.
54* Cracked.com compiled a list of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19021_5-amazing-things-invented-by-donald-duck-seriously.html 5 Things Donald Duck Invented]].
55* ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' already travelled to the moon in ''"Recap/TintinDestinationMoon"'' and ''"Recap/TintinExplorersOnTheMoon"'' (1950-1953, in publication). This was almost fifteen years before the Americans actually landed on the moon. Tintin's moon exploration was also scientifically very accurate without any typical science fiction clichés of aliens and such, and while the the use of a single, non-modular rocket might seem simplistic compared to the Apollo-Saturn multi-stage booster rockets and separate lunar and command/service modules, it was actually one ("Direct Ascent"[[note]]It *would* have used a multi-stage booster, though, the Tintin propulsion method being unavailable.[[/note]]) of three flight profiles studied (the others being "Earth Orbit Rendezvous" and the eventually implemented "Lunar Orbit Rendezvous").
56* Once in a while, one of ComicBook/{{Diabolik}}'s gadgets is produced in Real Life. For example, the 1967 story "The Heart of Fire" features an automotive navigation system, beating the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro_Gyrocator Electro Gyrocator]] by ''fourteen years''.
57* Less than a year after the publishing of ''Detective Comics'' #859, the issue that detailed [[ComicBook/{{Batwoman}} Kate Kane's]] dismissal from West Point under DADT for being lesbian, a real-life USMA cadet, also named Katherine, also with similar impressive academic, military, and physical achievements, [[https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/lesbian-west-point-cadet-resigns/story%3fid=11395858 resigned from the Academy for similar reasons.]]
58* ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' has done this on many occasions:
59** A number of Al Jaffee's wacky inventions have actually managed to become a reality in spite of the intended silliness of them:
60*** In ''MAD Devices for Safer Smoking'' one of his inventions is the Smoke Simulator, a water-containing tube that is inserted into a cigarette that blocks the smoke from the cigarette and instead you inhale the steam from the Smoke Simulator instead. While it's different in design it nevertheless is basically an E-Cigarette. Not bad for a comic drawn in 1964 and, [[OlderThanTheyThink while vape devices were patented as early as 1927]], the first commercially-available device wasn't sold until 2003 in China.
61*** He does it again in ''Some MAD Auto Safety Devices'' with both the Radar Slowdowner and the Automatic Pick-Me-Upper, both of which exist today and function almost ''identically'' to his devices: The radar slows down a car when it nears a car in front of it just like dynamic radar cruise control, and the latter detects if a driver has been drinking and won't allow the car to move if he has like modern-day breathalyzer ignition interlocks. The comic is from 1963, while the first successful publicly used interlock didn't appear until the early 1990 (though again a design was tinkered with as early as 1969) and radar active cruise control didn't appear until 2000.
62** The show's spoof of ''Series/WheelOfFortune'', "We'll Make a Fortune", ran in a 1986 issue. Said parody features a contestant earning a number of {{undesirable prize}}s and then bemoaning the heavy tax burden placed upon him. A year later, the show itself switched from awarding prize showcases to awarding mostly cash for this very reason.
63* An Australian Instagram cosplayer known for dressing up as ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} was [[https://globalnews.ca/news/7356077/catwoman-instagram-monique-agostino/ sentenced to two years in jail for participating in a series of masked burglaries]]. Sadly, she didn't actually dress as a ClassyCatBurglar during the act.
64* ''ComicBook/AltHero'':
65** "The War in Paris" is about a French nationalist uprising in the capital. One prominent nationalist protester, Chantel—she's in the foreground of the front cover—sports a striking, bright yellow jacket. The volume was published in September 2018, two months before the Yellow Vest movement arose in France.
66** The first printed volume, "Crackdown", sees the Global Justice Initiative apprehending online "hate speech" posters in Berlin and turning them over to the federal police. In 2022 the German federal police began raiding homes and arresting citizens for posting "hateful remarks" and "insults" against politicians online.
67* A UsefulNotes/GoldenAgeOfComicBooks ''Comicbook/{{Batman}}'' story has an apparently infinite scrolling map emerge from the Batmobile's dashboard, automatically centred on the car's current location. Predating even the precursor technologies to GPS by decades.
68[[/folder]]
69
70[[folder:Fan Works]]
71* In Chapter 147 of ''Fanfic/AThingOfVikings'', [[spoiler:the Jorgenson clan]] is holding elections for a new clanheir after the previous one died. Nobody can agree on a candidate, with one of them being on the ''fifth round'' of votes and no closer to a majority. The chapter was written years before, but published a few months after, a similar thing happened in the US House of Representatives, where Kevin [=McCarthy=] only became Speaker after ''15'' rounds of voting. In the fic, things don't end so cleanly, with [[spoiler:the clan [[BalkanizeMe splintering into new clans]] to get out of the clanhead's control]].
72[[/folder]]
73
74[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
75* ''WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut'' kicks off with the main characters sneaking into an R-rated movie starring their favorite cartoon characters. During the movie's release, there were several reports of underage teenage fans of the show sneaking into the theaters showing the film after purchasing tickets to ''Film/WildWildWest''. Matt and Trey were not happy about this because they hated that film and were mad that they inadvertently helped it make money at the box office.
76[[/folder]]
77
78[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
79* 1934 film ''Film/FlirtationWalk'' opens with a carrier-based air attack on Pearl Harbor. (It's an Army/Navy drill.)
80* The 1945 FilmNoir, ''Film/{{Detour}}'', depicted Tom Neal as a guy narrating how he had killed two people, but [[UnreliableNarrator insisting]] that both killings were completely accidental. Two decades later, Neal was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the gunshot death of his estranged wife, which he testified was accidental.
81* In 1950, ''Film/AllAboutEve'' depicted a fictional theatrical award called the Sarah Siddons Award (named for a real-life 18th century actress). The film inspired a group of theatergoers in Chicago to create a [[http://sarahsiddonssociety.org/about real-life Sarah Siddons Award]] two years later, which continues to be given to honor distinguished actresses and actors.
82* [[http://www.technovelgy.com/ Technovelgy]] tracks down sci-fi tech in RealLife, such as [[http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=998 transparent data tiles]] like those in ''Film/MinorityReport''.
83* In the Jim Belushi film ''[[Film/{{K91989}} K-9]]'', Detective Dooley's K-9 partner Jerry Lee, played by real police dog Koton, [[spoiler:was shot while apprehending a suspect in the attempted murder of a police officer. Two years after the film's release, Koton, who had returned to real police work after the movie, was shot and killed while apprehending a suspect in the attempted murder of a police officer.]]
84* ''Film/TheTrumanShow'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show_delusion delusion]]. While fear of reality not being "real" is at least as old as Creator/{{Plato}}, cases of people who believed that they were living inside a reality TV show had a massive spike after this film mainstreamed the idea.
85* A fan of ''Film/IronMan'' built his own personal digital life assistant and named him JARVIS.
86* A giant sign in the shape of a bull was built for the movie ''Film/BullDurham''. Placed over the outfield fence, if hit by a home run ball it would light up and make noise, and the person who hit it would win a free steak. The real life Durham Bulls baseball team kept it.
87* In the movies of Creator/SachaBaronCohen, the artistic premise of the story and characters is always deeply intertwined with the real life behavior of those who aren't in on the joke. So to say that life imitates art is somewhat trivial. Nonetheless, there were some moments in ''Film/Bruno2009'' when the real life external circumstances surrounding the film's production evolved similarly to the fixed prior notion of the movie's plot, as it had been conceived of before filming.
88** This occurred when they were in Italy for Fashion Week. The plot of the movie was that Bruno would cause a major disturbance at a fashion show, resulting in his being thrown out, blacklisted, and possibly even arrested. In fact, all of these things happened in real life, and so when he is later disallowed from entering fashion shows, it is because he was actually black-listed by that time.
89** Later, when Bruno sits down at a restaurant and commits "carbicide" by gorging himself on several ice cream sundaes, it was carbicide for both Bruno and the actor, Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen had actually spent many months prior refraining from carbs, in the course of body sculpting for the role.
90** Kazakhstan actually started [[http://ru.reuters.com/article/idRUL6N0TZ1TQ20141215 expanding its potassium exports]] in 2014. Whether they will become [[Film/{{Borat}} number one exporter of potassium]] remains in question.
91* A dark, tragic version occurs in ''Film/TheReturn2003''. [[spoiler:Father is given a DisneyVillainDeath.]] One of the film's other actors, 15-year-old Vladimir Garin, [[spoiler: had one in RealLife just one month after shooting had completed;]] he never even lived to see the premiere.
92* For decades, many in the United States believed the hypothetical of a black U.S. president, while possible, would never likely happen, at least, for a really long time and fictional portrayals such as Creator/MorganFreeman in ''Film/DeepImpact'' (1998), the 2003 Creator/ChrisRock comedy ''Film/HeadOfState'' and even Creator/TerryCrews in ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' (2006) were the absolute closest things African-Americans had. However, on [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama November 4, 2008...]].
93* Possibly a cross between this and just plain {{fandom}}, but since the release of ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', many, many real life archaeologists have been wearing [[TheRedStapler wide-brimmed fedoras]].
94* In the 1997 ''Film/{{Bean}}'' movie, Bean destroys a priceless painting, and attempts to fix it by drawing a new face over the top, and eventually replacing the original with a poster. In 2012, a [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19349921 100-year-old painting of Christ was "restored"]] by an amateur who essentially painted a new face over the top. An official was quoted as saying, "If we can't fix it, we will probably cover the wall with a photo of the painting." In an incredibly bizarre coincidence, the ThemeSong of the Mr. Bean show is "Ecce Homo", the same name as the painting.
95* In ''Film/TheNatural'', an ailing Roy Hobbs hits a dramatic and unlikely home run to send the New York Knights to the World Series. Four years later, an ailing Kirk Gibson would hit a dramatic and unlikely home run to win game one of the 1988 World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers. To hammer the point home, one of Gibson's team mates during the post game interviews wrote on a piece of tape and stuck to the nameplate over his locker Roy Hobbs.
96* Another from Cracked: [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19985_6-ironic-coincidences-behind-scenes-famous-movies.html A whole list of these]]. In order: [[Film/{{Troy}} Actor playing Achilles injures Achilles tendon]]; [[Film/TropicThunder Actor gets Oscar nom for playing Oscar-Bait actor]]; [[Film/SinginInTheRain Actress playing hidden voice-double has her own hidden voice-double]]; [[Film/TronLegacy Actor whose character gets scanned into a computer gets scanned into a computer in real life]]; and [[Film/KnockedUp Actor who plays a doctor in movie is (or was) an actual doctor-turned-actor]].
97* In ''Film/{{Audition}}'', a guy tries to help his friend get over the loss of his wife by holding a fake audition to find him a new girlfriend. [[CuteAndPsycho It doesn't work out too well for his friend.]] According to ''[[http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/09/tom-cruise-scientology-marriage-katie-holmes Vanity Fair]]'', and confirmed by Paul Haggis, the ChurchOfHappyology did just that, minus the murderous girlfriend part, for Creator/TomCruise, allegedly interviewing the likes of Creator/ScarlettJohansson, Creator/LindsayLohan, [[Series/ModernFamily Sofia Vergara]], and [[Film/SupermanReturns Kate Bosworth]] before picking Creator/KatieHolmes. It was going quite well, actually, [[HumiliationConga until Holmes plotted her escape/divorce and now it's all in the news.]]
98* The success of ''Film/VForVendetta'' helped popularize the Guy Fawkes mask, which are now widely available for purchase. What's different is the purpose they're used for: by Anonymous and various supporting groups as a symbol of protest. Just like in the movie.
99* Between ''Film/GetShorty'' and ''Film/BeCool'', Chili Palmer's movie, eventually released as ''Get Leo'', was a hit. Then the studio forced Chili to make a sequel, which flopped badly enough to make him want out of the movie biz. ''Film/BeCool'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] the fact that it was a sequel and that [[{{Sequelitis}} sequels are often worse than the original]]. Rather bizarrely, audiences agreed.
100* Set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, ''Film/RoboCop2'' shows Detroit trying to stave off bankruptcy after most city services have already been contracted out to the MegaCorp Omni Consumer Products. In 2013, [[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/us/detroit-files-for-bankruptcy.html?hp&_r=0 Detroit actually filed for bankruptcy,]] even after a state appointed emergency manager privatized many city services.
101* In ''Film/GoneInSixtySeconds1974'', one of the police cars, 1 Baker 11, has a camera mounted in the center of the back seats facing forward, presumably to record the chase for police records.[[note]]Actually the only way some POV shots could be filmed.[[/note]] Dash cams in police cars weren't common for another decade and a half.
102* In ''Film/PoliceAcademy'', the cadets are told the city-wide riot has become too out of control for them to handle, and all police personnel are pulling out of the area, which causes the riot to intensify. LAPD doing just that - withdrawing from a liquor store looting that turned to assaulting passing motorists at Florence Boulevard and Normandie Avenue in South Central LA, following the acquittal of the officers involved in the Rodney King beating, led to the six day LA riots.
103* The fancy map on the windshield in ''Film/{{Starman}}''? Take a smartphone or tablet connected to the Internet, a few parts, hook up to a car, and the result is a ''GPS heads-up display''.
104* The 1969 film ''Film/{{Marooned}}'' is about a spaceship malfunctioning and leaving the three astronauts unable to deorbit with dwindling oxygen and other resources. The movie was seen in the theatre by Jim and Marilyn Lovell. Marilyn then had a nightmare where her husband was in that exact situation. Three months later, Jim Lovell captained Apollo 13.
105* The 2002 Mexican film ''Film/ElCrimenDelPadreAmaro'' shows a Catholic Priest receiving money from a drug lord which he then uses to build a new hospital; He justifies it by saying that although it's "bad money", it becomes "good money" through good works and intentions. 3 years after the film was released, the Bishop of Aguascalientes [[http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=20051006&id=DGQxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aqMFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3522,3449020 used pretty much the same justification]] when questioned if his Diocese had received money from drug traffickers.
106* ''Film/{{The Parent Trap|1998}}'' was a Disney movie about two identical twin sisters being separated by their divorced parents and living a continent away from each other without knowing of the other's existence. They run into each other in an American summer camp and conspire to get their parents back together. Minus the "get the parents back together" part, a similar story occurred with the case of [[http://www.facebookstories.com/stories/53771/twinsters two originally South Korean twins]] who had been put up for adoption in 1987 and separated. They had been raised in the United States and Europe and rediscovered each other through social networking in 2013. They're even aware of the parallels.
107* A fast food restaurant obviously ripping off UsefulNotes/McDonalds, barely staying out of legal trouble with the real deal? It was [=McDowells=] in the 1988 Eddie Murphy film ''Film/ComingToAmerica'', and [=MaDonal=] in the real world's Kurdistan in the following decade. The founder wanted to bring a real [=McDonalds=] to Kurdistan, but was refused a franchise.
108* ''Film/AnAlanSmitheeFilmBurnHollywoodBurn'' had such a TroubledProduction (a Creator/SylvesterStallone movie in which the film is recut without the director's permission into an incoherent mess that the director then tries to disown and finally sabotage) that it almost turns into a documentary about ''itself''. Most notably, the director was so dissatisfied with the film that he got his name removed, meaning that a film where the main character is named "Alan Smithee" had an ''actual'' director credit for AlanSmithee (because at the time, it was the only name directors could use to distance themselves from their projects. This led to the Director's Guild discontinuing the practice of using that name as a pseudonym; aliases are now selected on a case by case basis.)
109* ''Film/{{Fanboys}}'' deals with a SecretlyDying ''Franchise/StarWars'' fan who gets to watch ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' as a dying wish before it's even released; In November 2015, a ''Star Wars'' fan suffering from terminal cancer would get to watch an unedited print of ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' [[https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/entertainment/dying-star-wars-fan-force-awakens-update/index.html before passing away shortly after.]]
110* ''Film/DarkWater'' is a horror movie about a girl discovered dead in a water tank after complaints are made about the water, and it features a malfunctioning elevator. This is frighteningly mirrored in real life with the mysterious death of Elisa Lam at the Cecil Hotel. Security footage showed her displaying erratic behavior in an elevator that wouldn't close, and days after she disappeared, people complained about the water, and she was found dead in one of the rooftop tanks, with no explanation as to how she got there.
111* ''Film/{{Playtime}}'' (1967) is a satirical take on the artificiality and homogeneity of modern culture. One scene demonstrated this by showing the hero looking down into an office area where the workers are each sitting in odd boxes--''cubicles''. The cubicle as a feature of office culture, which would have looked very weird to 1967 audiences, soon became standard all over the world.
112* ''Film/{{Hulk}}'' had a type of medicine known as nanomeds. Over a decade since the movie, nanomeds were quite useful and reliable.
113* At one point in ''Film/UrbanLegend'', Creator/AliciaWitt's character goes to the university's SpookySilentLibrary to do some research and finds ''The Encyclopedia of Urban Legends''. No book with that title ever existed until ''after'' the movie was made and released (this isn't a case of {{Defictionalization}} or TheRedStapler; folklore professor and author Jan Harold Brunvand says in his introduction to the real ''Encyclopedia'' that it had been in development for quite some time before the film was even being made).
114* ''Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory'' had a rather embarrassing incident for Creator/DeniseNickerson, who played Violet Beauregarde. For the most part, the factory scenes were shot in chronological order, with the child actors leaving right after filming their downfalls. However, a broken shoe from Nickerson's wardrobe forced them to switch the filming of Violet and Veruca's respective scenes. After wrapping her infamous transformation into a blueberry, Nickerson flew home to New York. Two days later, she was sitting in math class when all the students started staring at her: her face was turning blue! As it turned out, the makeup had seeped into her pores and was resurfacing. Fortunately, it wasn't permanent and soon cleared up.[[note]]And the movie wasn't out yet.[[/note]]
115* ''Film/ThisIsSpinalTap'': The band talks about how a previous drummer died in a "bizarre gardening accident" that was "best left unsolved." In 1992, Jeff Porcaro, drummer for Music/{{Toto}}, died when he allegedly inhaled a lethal dose of insecticide he had just sprayed around his greenhouse. However, coroners later put his death down to a heart attack due to cocaine abuse. Family and friends disputed this, claiming that he had a family history of heart conditions and was not a heavy cocaine user.
116* In 1984, Drew Barrymore starred in ''Film/IrreconcilableDifferences'', about a girl who becomes emancipated from her parents. Barrymore herself became an emancipated minor at age 14. As in ''Irreconcilable Differences'', even her mother admitted it was for the better.
117* The documentary ''Film/HeartsOfDarknessAFilmmakersApocalypse'', which chronicles the TroubledProduction of ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', points out several parallels between the events of ''Apocalypse Now'' and its production, including the DescentIntoMadness.
118* ''Film/AmericanAnimals'' is a {{dramatization}} of a real robbery. The robbers watch a bunch of [[TheCaper heist movies]] for inspiration and institute the color-themed aliases from ''Film/ReservoirDogs''. The leader gives one member the alias "Mr. Pink," and they have an argument about it that mirrors the film.
119* In ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'', the SignatureScene where the Brothers go on a car chase through a shopping mall depicts a Toys "R" Us as one of the mall's tenants. While standalone Toys "R" Us stores were always the norm, the chain did open its first location with a traditional enclosed shopping mall in 1985 -- five years after the movie's release.
120* In ''Film/TheRunningMan'', released in 1987 and set in 2019, the ICS televison network digitally creates a fight between Ben Richards and Captain Freedom, using what would become known around that time in real life as "deepfake" technology.
121* One scene in ''Film/WonderWoman1984'' features the streets of Washington, D.C. being overrun by angry mobs as society falls apart thanks to a {{Trumplica}}. Just under two weeks after the film came out, angry pro-Trump mobs stormed the Capitol on his instigation, in a way that rather disturbingly resembles what was depicted in the film.
122* In the 1999 film ''Film/{{Bowfinger}}'', the production of [[ShowWithinAShow the fictional]] ''[[ShowWithinAShow Chubby Rain]]'' has some aspects in common with the later production of the real life cult movie ''Film/TheRoom2003''. These include the director financing the film with his own money, gratuitous nudity being used as a selling point, filming without a permit, the actors thinking the film may never see the light of day and a Hollywood-style premiere that ends with huge applause (though perhaps not for the reason the filmmakers intended).
123* The three finger salute (thumb and little finger held down by each other, middle three fingers raised together) first used as a symbol of defiance in ''Film/TheHungerGames'', was consciously adopted from the movie by the pro-democracy protests in Thailand, Hong Kong, and Myanmar. Additionally, [[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2847503/Ferguson-protesters-scrawl-Hunger-Games-slogan-landmark-tense-town-waits-grand-jury-decision-indicting-Darren-Willson-killing-Michael-Brown.html graffiti reading "If we burn, you burn with us"]] appeared during the protests in Ferguson, Missouri regarding the shooting of Michael Brown.
124* In ''Film/{{Airheads}}'', the main characters find out that the rock station KPPX "Rebel Radio" is about to switch formats to easy listening and the existing staff is going to be laid off, and [[CorruptCorporateExecutive the station manager]] [[BadBoss wasn't going to tell the staff anything about this till the last minute]] ([[SpannerInTheWorks the fact that they inadvertently find the new promotional materials forces him to reveal this]]). In 2020, the rock station WAAF in Boston was celebrating its 50th anniversary only for the staff to suddenly be informed that the station was switching to Christian rock and they'd all be laid off. And much like the DJ in the film, [[TheLastDance they decided to throw an impromptu farewell party in the station's parking lot]].
125* Film/JamesBond is canonically a [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Royal Navy Commander]]. In September 2021, some weeks before the release of ''Film/NoTimeToDie'', Creator/DanielCraig was made a Honorary Commander of the Royal Navy.
126* The film ''Film/LiarLiar'' was released in 1997. In 2022, when Amber Heard's lawyer objected to his own question in Johnny Depp's lawsuit against her and quickly got overruled by a confused judge ("You asked the question..."), viewers were quick to quote parts of the scene where attorney Fletcher Reed and the judge did almost exactly the same.
127* In ''Film/TheUnbearableWeightOfMassiveTalent'', Creator/NicolasCage and AscendedFanboy Javi Gutierrez [[IShouldWriteABookAboutThis write a movie about their budding friendship]], which earns a standing ovation at the premiere. When the actual movie premiered at the 2022 South By Southwest Film Festival, it also earned widespread praise, temporarily resulting in a 100% Website/RottenTomatoes score.
128* A deliberate one, after the movie ''Film/ProjectX'' came out, several teens tried to replicate the movie's WildTeenParty, with bad [[http://abcnews.go.com/US/growing-number-project-party-copycats-lead-arrests-nationwide/story?id=15941569#.T6WNVlIpf_c results]]. Two of them ended in violent shootings, and [[http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/dutch-teen-sweet-16-party-invitation-viral-facebook-ends-3-000-rioting-groningen-suburb-article-1.1165386 another]] ended with a riot and cars being set on fire.
129[[/folder]]
130
131[[folder:Literature]]
132* Creator/JulesVerne's Nautilus... a long-range electric submarine powered by steampunk!
133** The world's first SSN was called ''Nautilus'' because of the book.
134** And Verne himself got the name from the real (and much less sophisticated) submarine designed for Napoleon by one Robert Fulton.
135** "Nautilus" was a popular submarine name for years, both before and after Verne's book, because the nautilus is a fairly well-known sea creature.
136** Space flight was also predicted by Creator/JulesVerne.
137*** What's more, he predicted that the first mission to the moon would be launched from Central Florida. For the ''right reasons'', even: Florida is closer to the equator than almost any other part of the United States, making it much more suitable to space launches.
138*** Also, the idea of using a giant cannon to launch things into space is being considered in RealLife for unmanned satellites.
139** ''Literature/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays'' led to the creation of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne_Trophy Jules Verne trophy]].
140* H. G. Wells:
141** ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'' proposed that time was the fourth dimension about ten years before Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity. Einstein based his theory of 4D spacetime on preexisting mathematical theories that ''were'' around when Wells wrote his story, though. Incidentally, that part of relativity -- the use of 4 dimensional non-euclidean geometries to explain General Relativity -- was co-developed by Bernhard Riemann.
142** The better example is when he managed to predict ''isotopes'' before the actual research papers about them came out.
143** Also, the description in ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' of the Heat-Ray (the original book, not the Hollywood versions which turn it into a flamethrower or generic EnergyWeapon) sounds suspiciously like the yet-to-be-invented microwave laser or maser.
144** Don't forget his short story ''The Land Ironclads'', which feature tank-like vehicles a decade before the first tanks were used in the Somme.
145*** [=DaVinci=] came up with the concept first, though.
146*** And even before that, the Greeks put catapults in siege towers.
147* Creator/ArthurCClarke's geosynchronous communication satellites. Although Clarke first published the idea as a scientist ''before'' he put them in his novels, so he arguably ''did'' invent Clarke's Orbit.
148* Predictions of Website/TheOtherWiki
149** Creator/NealStephenson's ''Literature/SnowCrash''.
150** So did [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijon_Tichy Stanislaw Lem]], decades earlier.
151** As did John Brunner in ''Literature/StandOnZanzibar''.
152** ''Literature/SnowCrash'' also anticipates [[Website/{{Google}} Google Earth]], though that may be a case of ArtImitatesArt.
153** ''VideoGame/SecondLife'' is ''definitely'' a case of ArtImitatesArt; its creators specifically reference ''Literature/SnowCrash'' and its Metaverse. ''Snow Crash'' also [[TropeCodifier codified]] the DigitalAvatar.
154* The fella who invented the waterbed in RealLife was unable to patent it because it had already been thoroughly described by Creator/RobertAHeinlein in ''Literature/StrangerInAStrangeLand''.
155** Likewise, one fella who tried to patent a method for lifting sunken ships ran into trouble because it was described thoroughly earlier - in a Creator/CarlBarks comic!
156** The word "grok", now a widely-used term, originated in Heinlein's ''Literature/StrangerInAStrangeLand'' as a word from the Martian Language spoken by the protagonist.
157** Heinlein's PoweredArmor is on its way to reality thanks to defense contractor Raytheon and several other groups. As of 2008, development is at the stage of strength-amplifying mechanical exoskeletons. No word yet on bulletproof plating and [[ArmCannon Arm Cannons]].
158*** One PoweredArmor prototype is [[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey named HAL]] and made by [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} Cyberdyne]]. Seriously.
159** While some of the details of his imagination were limited by the technology of 1957, he invented [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_design Computer Aided Design (CAD)]] in ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Door_into_Summer The Door Into Summer]]'' in the form of "Drafting Dan."
160** Likewise, ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Door_into_Summer The Door Into Summer]]'' featured a company (Hired Girl, Inc.) manufacturing [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_vacuum_cleaner robotic vacuum cleaners]] almost three decades before the first real ones were actually marketed.
161* Aldous Huxley kinda made up embryonic stem cell research in his dystopian novel ''Literature/BraveNewWorld''.
162** For that matter, the characters' ideas about "family" are slowly becoming more and more realistic.
163** At the time the book was written, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was not known to exist. Huxley made up a condition that later turned out to be real, and even managed to get the symptoms right.
164* Creator/RayBradbury predicted portable audio players and cell phones in the early '50s.
165** See also the two-way radio watches of Midnight, Dick Tracy, and Doc Savage (who debuted after Dick Tracy but used a radio watch before the other two).
166* The T-Minus countdown system (10, 9, 8, etc.) was first used in ''Film/WomanInTheMoon'' before being adopted by NASA. Wernher von Braun was known to be a fan of the film and used a countdown in every launch he participated in, possibly as an homage.
167* In 1898 Morgan Robertson wrote a novella named ''Literature/FutilityOrTheWreckOfTheTitan'' about an ocean liner named Titan which sinks in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg. In the novella, Titan was one of the largest passenger ships of the time and considered indestructible, and had way too few lifeboats for its 2500 passengers, over half of which died in the accident. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic 14 years later...]] (The RealLife incident didn't have a battle with a polar bear, however)
168* Isaac Asimov's short SF story "The Feeling of Power" is based on the premise that people would completely forget how to do mathematical calculations manually - on paper paper - and end up relying entirely on machines. His "hand computer" predates the calculator. And the story was initially rejected by publishers because it was deemed ridiculous that people could forget how to do arithmetic.
169** However, when his idea became reality, educators wasted little time taking this fiction as gospel - insisting that students learn how to solve problems on "paper paper". It is worth speculating however, on how long it will be, if that day is not here already, where calculators are viewed in the same light as rulers, compasses and protractors.
170* One anecdote long known to fans of ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' tells of a terminally ill fan who, inspired by the books' running joke about one being secure in the knowledge that he's prepared for anything so long as he "knows where his towel is," made sure to keep his own towel with him in his final days.
171** When Creator/DouglasAdams died of cardiac arrest in 2001, he was at a gym, so he actually ''did'' have a towel with him at his time of death.
172** Modern smartphones and tablet computers with access to Wikipedia ([[JustForFun/WikipediaBehavior or, possibly more accurately, TV Tropes]]) bear much more than a [[http://xkcd.com/548/ passing resemblance]] to the features of the titular Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. One can even update Wikipedia's entry on Earth to say Harmless or Mostly Harmless, but it's been done to death already.
173* Go reference-spotting in ''Literature/{{Idoru}}''. Okay, so it's made in 1995 when the internet was actually invented, but many things are just now becoming possible - and done.
174** Notably, Japan now has at least one [[http://www.technewsdaily.com/holographic-pop-star-takes-japan-by-storm-1612/ virtual pop singer]]. Yes, [[VirtualCelebrity idoru]] [[Music/{{Vocaloid}} are real]].
175*** RAH's ''Moon is a Harsh Mistress'' (1966) had CGI of Adam Selene appearing on vidscreens.
176* Tom Wolfe's ''Literature/TheBonfireOfTheVanities'' is sometimes criticised for being a thinly-veiled RomanAClef dealing with events that happened in New York City in the late '80s and early '90s. This ignores the fact that the book was published in 1987, and all of the writing happened before that, meaning that most of the events upon which is was supposedly "based" actually didn't happen until ''after'' the novel was published.
177* Creator/DaleBrown predicted low-observable external weapons pods well before [[http://www.dailyairforce.com/583/Boeings-Advanced-Super-Hornet.html Boeing made it possible]].
178* In ''Literature/TheSumOfAllFears'', it's mentioned that local wags near the [[UsefulNotes/PeaceThroughSuperiorFirepower Strategic Air Command]] HQ joked that the relatively new (at the time) Command Center was made so that the actual place matched up with the common Hollywood depictions of the facility, which were better than the original structure.
179* Sir Arthur Conan Doyle invented Literature/SherlockHolmes, perhaps the most famous detective in history. Not content with writing about a detective, Doyle actually ended up becoming something of a detective himself, proving the innocence of two men who had been wrongfully convicted in separate cases.
180* The topper might be Creator/MurrayLeinster's prescient short story ''A Logic Named Joe''. In it, he describes a networked computer system in homes across the country that allows people to learn how to cheat on taxes, find hangover cures, kill their spouse using hard to trace household chemicals, and most of all allows young children to discover porn. He not only predicted the internet, but he predicted search engines, online porn, filtering software, and the sinister uses people have for Google. In ''March of 1946''.
181** The same story also predicted online television, on-demand television, online video chat, the various other mundane uses that people would use the internet and home computers for, and even made a pretty good guess as to what desktop computers look like.
182* A throwaway reference in the backstory of Creator/JohnWCampbell's "Frictional Losses": the Japanese attempted to counter an invasion (by space aliens) by supercharging airplane engines, packing the planes full of explosives, and [[RammingAlwaysWorks ramming them into the invaders' ships]]. He published this in July 1936.
183* In ''Literature/GulliversTravels'', Creator/JonathanSwift describes the two moons of Mars as discovered by the Laputan astronomers. 150 years later, the two moons of Mars were actually discovered. (Contrary to some reports, their orbital period and diameter do not match what is described in the book.)
184** Actually, as soon as it was discovered Jupiter has four (apparently) moons, people [[http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath151/kmath151.htm started speculating]] Mars has two.
185* John Brunner's ''Literature/StandOnZanzibar'', written in 1969 and mentioned above, takes place in 2010 when the Earth's population has reached 7 billion. He was only one year short of when that milestone was actually reached.
186* There's a theory going around that cyberpunk (and especially ''Literature/{{Neuromancer}}'') drastically influenced the development of the internet. It doesn't hurt that William Gibson coined the term "cyberspace". But wait, it gets weirder- Some followers of the genre suspect the recent lack of literature is due to this defictionalization, combined with a general perception that since 9/11 things have been looking a little more dystopian.
187* In Karel Capek's 1924 novel ''Krakatit'' a scientist discovers how to create explosions by breaking up atoms.
188* Louisa May Alcott based ''Literature/LittleWomen'' on her family, with a few changes. In reality, Elizabeth Alcott (Beth's real life counterpart) died before Anna (Meg's real life counterpart) married, and May (Amy's real life counterpart) wasn't yet married when the second part of ''Little Women'' was published. Years later, however, May married the man who had comforted her when her mother Abba Alcott died, just as Amy married Laurie who had comforted her after Beth March died.
189* As Gabrielle Donnelly wrote her modern-day sequel to the ''Little Women'' trilogy, ''The Little Women Letters'', she sent her manuscript to a young London friend, Harriet, to ensure the spoken language was up to date. Towards the end of the book, [[http://gabrielledonnellyauthor.com/about.html Harriet moved into a Belsize Park flat with a former college room-mate, just as Lulu, the book's main character, did.]]
190--> '''Gabrielle Donnelly:''' In view of which, I was tempted to write an extra chapter in which Lulu‘s older friend, a writer living in Los Angeles, won the lottery and became exceedingly rich.
191* In 1920s Soviet satirical novel ''Literature/TheTwelveChairs'' a con man sold tickets to access the [[http://culture.ru/en/atlas/object/1569 Proval lake]] (literally "gap", "collapse", "fall-through"). "For repairs. So that it wouldn't fall any further." In the 1980s the local authorities really started selling tickets. And then closed the access for a while to clear away the debris and reinforce walls. And in 2008 a statue of the con man with tickets was installed by the tunnel entrance.
192* In his 1907 novel ''The Marvels of the Year 2,000'', Emilio Salgari (better known as the author of ''Literature/{{Sandokan}}'') described a world eerily similar to the current one, including high-speed electric trains, television, off-shore platforms, and, less happily, ''[[NukeEm nuclear weapons]] and the fear of them forcing the world to peace'' (he described a powerful chemical explosive capable of shattering mountains that somehow ended in the hands of pretty much all countries, forcing them to redraw the borders as the first measure to prevent the last war).
193* In 2012, Russian writer Mikhail Belozerov wrote ''Ukrainian gambit: the war of 2015'' (Russian: ''[[http://www.litres.ru/mihail-belozerov/ukrainskiy-gambit-voyna-2015/ Украинский гамбит. Война 2015]]'') as a speculative novel set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. The story was centered around a squad of Russian volunteers from the Donbass region, who fight against Ukrainians, Tatars and the NATO response force. Short of NATO involvement, everything else later turned out to be TruthInTelevision.
194* Creator/EEDocSmith described a command and control system he invented for the ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' setting which allowed the heroes to direct the movements of thousands of starships all across the galaxy in a manner that was comprehensible for a single commander to understand what was happening and coordinate. A US Navy Admiral informed Smith after the war that the command and information control centers (ops rooms) the US Navy ultimately placed in their warships to manage and coordinate ship and fleet actions, now used by warships worldwide, was directly inspired by and based on Smith's creation.
195* The Literature/{{Janie}} series of novels centers on the titular Janie, who finds out that her parents aren't her real parents and she was actually kidnapped as a child by their daughter from her real family. In 2016, South Carolina teen [[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/alexis-anigo-kamiyah-mobley-kidnapping.html Alexis Manigo]] found out that her mother actually kidnapped her from the hospital as a baby from her real mother and her birth name is Kamiyah Mobley. Alexis stated that nothing was ever out of the ordinary, other than the fact that she had no Social Security number or driver's license.
196* In L. Frank Baum's 1914 Oz sequel ''Literature/TikTokOfOz'', the character Shaggy Man suddenly contacts Princess Ozma through a magic "wireless telephone" he takes out of his pocket, late in the story. While likely invented as just a last minute fantasy plot device, inserted because two distant characters needed to contact one another at that moment in the story, Baum accurately describes what is essentially a cell phone, about a hundred years before they became common-place and portable enough to fit in one's pocket.
197* Similarly, a character in Philip Francis Nowlan's 1928 novella ''[[ComicStrip/BuckRogers Armageddon 2419 A.D.]]'' uses what is essentially a cellular flip-phone. The story also features flying robotic drones.
198* A theme in the ''Literature/{{Wilt}}'' novels by Creator/TomSharpe concerns the office politics and academic infighting among the Faculty staff at the "Fenland Tech" [[note]]American readers, think "community college" with all that implies for underfunding, under-resourced, academically unglamorous, and demoralised staff[[/note]]. Fenland Tech lives in the shadow of an ancient, world-renowned and prestigious university; a goodly number of the FT staff, including Henry Wilt, are graduates of that university and live in envy of their better-placed peers, and are hideously aware they inhabit a stagnant backwater of Education. Sharpe wrote the books as a RomanAClef TakeThat against his old employer, Cambridge Tech College. Fenland's senior academics have grandiose schemes for offering degree courses, are victims to every fad going, and long for the day when they can rebrand as at least a polytechnic and ideally a fully-fledged University. they get so embroiled in office politics that they fail to realise they can barely teach at a far lower academic level - which is what they are there for. The idea that their pretentions will be realised and the tech can become a University is presented as a monumental act of self-delusion and a collective folly indulged by barely competent mediocre academics. however - Tom Sharpe just about lived to see the day when his old tech college actually ''did'' rebrand itself as a University - Anglia Ruskin - under a government with different priorities.[[note]]Which was duly accused of dumbing down and hopelessly diluting British academic standards...[[/note]] Although ARU remains in the fourth and lowest tier of UsefulNotes/BritishUnis...
199* In 1940, Peter Fleming (Brother of Creator/IanFleming) wrote ''The Flying Visit'' where he imagined UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler parachuting in Britain to propose a peace treaty with the British government, only to find that government at a loss of what to do with this bizarre situation until they decided to let Hitler return to Germany to resolve it. One year later, Hitler's Deputy Fuehrer, Rudolf Hess, did that exact stunt ''for real'' and while the Allies would keep him their prisoner for the rest of his life, the British government found him a big bother dealing with for their foreign policy and propaganda messaging.
200* Two unnerving cases related to Creator/StephenKing's novel ''Literature/{{Misery}}'':
201** In 1991, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverley_Allitt Beverley Allitt]], an English nurse, committed four murders in a children's ward. The fact that she looks a bit like Annie makes it even scarier.
202** Annie breaking Paul's legs gets even more horrifying given then--13-year-old Thad Phillip's 1995 ordeal at the hands of Joe Clark--kidnapped and held prisoner for 43 hours while Clark broke the bones in his legs. Phillips finally escaped by throwing himself down the stairs and dragging himself to a phone, by which point he was within two hours of death from internal bleeding. He survived, but needed numerous surgeries and walks with a limp to this day. [[note]] And he was the ''lucky'' one--Clark ''murdered'' two other boys in this manner[[/note]]
203* The example every mystery novelist has nightmares about: in 1929, Arthur Upfield and several friends developed a way to [[NeverFoundTheBody completely dispose of a corpse]] for one of his Literature/{{Bony}} detective novels. One of the friends [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murchison_Murders went and tried it]] -- and would have [[ThePerfectCrime gotten away with it]] if he hadn't become lazy and not followed all the steps correctly. Upfield even took a photo of "Snowy" Rowles with his new car - the one he'd committed the first murders to get. Later, Upfield used one of the pieces of evidence used to convict Rowles [[note]]the third murder victim had an eighteen carat gold wedding ring that had accidentally been mended with a nine carat gold solder, giving it a unique, identifiable trait[[/note]] of the third murder [[ArtImitatesLife in another mystery story]].
204* The 1995 ''Literature/DoctorWhoMissingAdventures'' novel ''Time of Your Life'' is a satire on the TV industry. One gag is that MBS's flagship soap opera is set in the studio building itself, to save costs. The following year, absurdist tabloid cable station L!VE TV did precisely that with their soap ''Canary Wharf''.
205* The main plot of 1999's ''[[Literature/XWingSeries X-Wing: Isard's Revenge]]'' has a number of strange similarities to the [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror US invasion of Iraq]] four years later. The New Republic invades a technically neutral state to depose a dictator largely for political reasons,[[note]]InUniverse, it's basically saber-rattling to keep Imperial Remnant warlords from getting any ideas about the Republic having been weakened by [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy the recently ended invasion of Grand Admiral Thrawn]].[[/note]] spurred on by faked evidence of a bogus enemy superweapon.[[note]]Which turns out to have been deliberately planted by a third party rather than merely misconstrued.[[/note]]
206* The real life story of Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, an aging mother and daughter who resided in the falling-down mansion of Film/GreyGardens, is eerily similar to that of Miss Havisham and Estella in ''Literature/GreatExpectations'', except the daughter was the one who got rejected by her fiancé, and unlike Estella, she never left the house (except when she ran away to New York for a few years). Miss Havisham herself may have been based on the real-life shut-in spurned bride Eliza Emily Donnithorne.
207* In ''Literature/NakedCameTheStranger'', the mob boss Mario Vella is the co-founder of the League to Preserve Italian-American Dignity, supposedly to combat pejorative stereotypes about Italians, which hassles newspapers and television producers who try to draw attention to the Mafia. The year after ''Naked Came the Stranger'' came out, Joseph Colombo, the boss of the Colombo crime family, created the Italian-American Civil Rights League. Among other things, the IACRL forced the United States Justice Department to stop using the word "Mafia" and ''Film/TheGodfather'' to remove the terms "Mafia" and "Cosa Nostra" from the dialogue. Colombo was shot in the head at his own rally a year after the IACRL was founded.
208[[/folder]]
209
210[[folder:Music]]
211* Zager & Evans's song "In the Year 2525" predicted test tube babies about 10 years before the first one was born.
212* The song “Joy Division Oven Gloves” by Music/HalfManHalfBiscuit not only predicted, but directly inspired actual Music/JoyDivision oven gloves.
213* In the song "One Piece at a Time" by Music/JohnnyCash, the narrator works on an assembly line putting together Cadillacs. Since he can't afford such an expensive car, he decides to get it "one piece at a time" by sneaking parts of the car out in his lunch box and his friend's mobile home over a period of several years to avoid suspicion. While this plan failed in the song (when the car was finally put together, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/One_piece_at_a_time.jpg it was an odd-looking mess]] since it used parts from so many different models), an automotive assembly line worker in Chongqing, China [[http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Bike+stolen+part+by+part%3b+CRIME.-a0206316588 successfully put a motorcycle together this way over the course of five years beginning in 2003]], though the thief got caught shortly after finally putting it together.
214* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=sN5tpSjOyOo "Linus and Lucy" was played on Elton John's Red Piano]]. Remind you of [[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} Schroeder]]?
215** Also, [[http://www.toypiano.com/product_information.asp?html_model_number=SBG4907R Schoenhutt's red baby grand piano]].
216* Music/WeirdAlYankovic:
217** His music video for [[Music/StraightOuttaLynwood "White and Nerdy"]] featured a throwaway joke about vandalizing the Website/{{Wikipedia}} page about Creator/AtlanticRecords after they stopped him from releasing his Music/JamesBlunt parody, "You're Pitiful". That page has since been vandalized enough times in that manner by angry fans that the page has been semi-protected or edit-protected for most of its life since, meaning that only registered Wikipedians are allowed to edit it.
218** Early in his career, he had a hit with [[Music/WeirdAlYankovicIn3D "I Lost on Jeopardy"]]. He competed on ''Rock & Roll Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' nearly two decades later... and lost.
219* No less than ''fourteen'' drummers have taken the stage with space-rockers ''Music/{{Hawkwind}}'' at one time or another. This may well have been the origin of the "disposable drummer" gag in ''Film/ThisIsSpinalTap''.
220** Although rock drummers and to a lesser extent bass players have a (deserved or undeserved) reputation as temperamental and frequently quitting.
221* The video for the 2005 Music/{{Eminem}} song "Like Toy Soldiers" features Eminem pacing in the corridors of a hospital while doctors attempt to save the life of his best friend, fellow UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}} rapper Proof, after he was shot. Their efforts were in vain; one of the last scenes of video shows Eminem attending Proof's funeral. On April 11, 2006, Proof was shot and killed in real life due to a barroom dispute.
222* The song "Miss America" by Music/{{Styx}} foreshadowed 1984 Miss America pageant winner Vanessa Williams' fall from grace. She resigned the title after nude photos taken before her pageantry days surfaced in Penthouse magazine.
223* In an August 1998 interview with ''Radio/AmericanCountryCountdown'', Music/MarkWills revealed that, when he was listening to the demo for his hit "Don't Laugh at Me", he actually passed by a homeless man holding a cardboard sign right as the demo hit the line "Right now I'm down to holdin' this little cardboard sign".
224* Two examples from the Music/PetShopBoys:
225** "King's Cross": ''Only last night I found myself lost/By the station called King's Cross/Dead and wounded on either side/You know it's only a matter of time'' -- this song was released two months ''before'' the 1987 fire at King's Cross tube station that killed 31 people.
226** "Dreaming of the Queen": A song that combines references to death and Princess Diana, often presumed to relate to Diana's death in 1997, was actually released in 1993.
227* In [[Music/TupacShakur 2Pac]]'s posthumous song "Changes", published in 1998, but recorded in 1992, he thinks a black president would end up being more divisive for the United States and it would be best to wait for more tolerant times. [[HilariousInHindsight 2Pac was mostly right.]] Were they really ready for UsefulNotes/BarackObama in 2008? No, not at all in fact. As soon as the results were announced in 2008, outcry ensued all over the United States, primarily in the South. Many ignorantly believe he was elected for the sole reason of being black. No one was really ready for a black President, and evidence can be found in the media or even right outside your door.
228* The 1992 song "Superman's Song" by Music/CrashTestDummies told of Superman's death and that he did so many heroic deeds while expecting nothing in return. One year later, Creator/DCComics came out with their storyline ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman''.
229[[/folder]]
230
231[[folder:Pinballs]]
232* The playfield for Creator/WilliamsElectronics' ''Pinball/SpaceShuttle'' shows two astronauts installing an orbital telescope, six years before the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed. However, this doesn't really indicate prescience on the part of Williams; Hubble was initially planned to launch a few years before the debut of the pinball machine, but construction difficulties and the ''Challenger'' disaster resulted in the Hubble spending years sitting in a clean room at NASA before it was finally deployed.
233[[/folder]]
234
235[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
236* In 1999, Wrestling/TripleH "married" Wrestling/VinceMcMahon's daughter, {{Wrestling/Stephanie|McMahon}}, in a Vegas drive-thru ceremony.[[note]]In which Stephanie was either drunk or drugged.[[/note]] While it initially was a stick-it to Vince, it eventually turned into a power brokering that consolidated Vince and Triple H's ambitions into the "[=McMahon=]-Helmsley Faction". In 2003, Triple H and Stephanie really ''did'' tie the knot and started a family. This in turn likely helped Triple H move from working the ring to working the front office of WWE as the VP of Talent and Live Events (and indeed, he will likely become Vince's successor as it now seems since his retirement on July 22, 2022).
237* Similarly, Wrestling/CMPunk and Wrestling/AJLee were involved in a storyline which saw the latter taken an interest in Punk and months of flirting and a few kisses between them. They started legitimately dating in 2013 and got married the following year.
238* Famous luchador and Catholic priest Fray Tormenta was inspired to wrestle to support his orphanage by two wrestling films in Mexico, ''El Señor Tormenta'' and ''Tormenta En El Ring'', which featured a luchador and Catholic priest who did just that.
239* Wrestling/RicFlair is infamous in smark circles for basically being everything he touted about himself in the ring in real life (living large and spending big), which came back to bite him when you've got nothing to fall back on in retirement (or rather what should be one's retirement).
240* Kevin Sullivan, a wrestler and writer in the creative team of WCW, basically booked his own divorce by have Wrestling/ChrisBenoit start having an on-screen affair with Kevin's wife "Women". Eventually the two would leave both of their spouses, have a child, marry in real life, and Chris would brutally murder her, their son, and committ suicide.
241[[/folder]]
242
243[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
244* In the Creator/WhiteWolf RPG ''TabletopGame/{{Aberrant}}'', a 1999 sourcebook gives the Pope's name as Benedict XVI. A common choice of papal name, true, but the next Pope to take office was Benedict XVI in 2005.
245* In ''TabletopGame/{{Battletech}}'', Vehicles are equipped with ferroglass cockpits. Now we have transparent aluminum. We're getting pretty close. (Sort of... The aluminum we now have is only transparent to certain types of radiation. And to create this material one electron has to be shot out of each of it's atoms with a soft x-ray laser, one by one. But it's a start. A slow, limping, crawl of a start.)
246** A more prominent example is the C-Bill, the setting's main form of currency (between the collapse of the Star League and the Dark Age era). The C-Bill is backed by [[SubspaceAnsible Hyper Pulse]] transmission time, making them essentially futuristic cell phone minutes. In the real world, not only do people in many developing countries, particularly in Africa, actually use cellphone minutes as a form of PracticalCurrency, they do it for ''exactly'' the same reasons as the peoples of the Inner Sphere do in ''Battletech'' (traditional currencies being [[RidiculousExchangeRates unreliable]] or outright nonexistent due to widespread economic and political instability in the aftermath of oppressive colonial governance, one or more major civil wars and intermittent border conflicts).
247* ''TabletopGame/DemonTheDescent'' has an in-universe example, via special ability called "Like the Movies" that allows a character to turn certain situations into fiction-like coincidences. Using it too much attracts the attention of the [[PhysicalGod God]]-[[EldritchAbomination Machine]], that apparently has enough time on its hands to watch human media and know if someone's using tropes to make things easier for themselves.
248* ''TabletopGame/UnknownArmies'' in an early edition had a spell called Laff Riot, which allowed the user to locally suspend the rules of the game and have everything play out according to situational comedy tropes. No one could die, anything too dangerous wound up a funny pratfall, and so on.
249** More generally, Videomancers (older editions) and Cinemancers (current) both cause TV and movie tropes to rewrite "reality." That's right; this site could help you be a [[PlayerArchetypes munchkin]] in Unknown Armies.
250[[/folder]]
251
252[[folder:Theatre]]
253* When the original production of Music/StephenSondheim's ''Theatre/ALittleNightMusic'' opened on Broadway, Len Cariou (Frederik) and Victoria Mallory (Anne) were dating. In the musical, Frederik is a middle-aged lawyer and Anne is his teenage trophy wife. However, Anne ends up running away with her stepson, Henrik. After the production closed, Victoria Mallory and Henrik's actor, Mark Lambert, ran away together without telling anyone, just as their characters did.
254** Their daughter, Ramona Mallory, debuted on Broadway in the latest revival as... Anne.
255* The Irish comedy musical ''I, Keano'' is a send-up of the Saipan incident, the real-life falling-out between [[UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} Republic of Ireland]] national [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball football]] team star Roy Keane and manager Mick [=McCarthy=] before the 2002 [[UsefulNotes/TheWorldCup FIFA World Cup]], which led to Keane going or being sent home and not playing in the tournament. During the production's first run, three major cast members—including Mario Rosenstock, who played "Keano"—publicly left the show.
256[[/folder]]
257
258[[folder:Video Games]]
259* A weapon that has turned up in multiple entries in the ''VideoGame/AceCombat'' series is the TLS, Tactical Laser System - essentially a weapon pod that projects a high-energy laser beam across long distances towards a target. Come 2020, and it's revealed that Lockheed-Martin is working on a very similar design meant to be mounted on fighter jets.
260* In 2009, Website/{{Cracked}} published a humorous series of photographs under an article named [[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_85_if-video-games-were-realistic/ If Video Games Were Realistic]]. One of the images had a ''VideoGame/GuitarHero'' controller with six buttons per fret, on each fret of the entire guitar, simulating a real six-stringed guitar. Well, guess what kind of guitar controller was published with ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fender_Mustang_Pro_Guitar_Controller_%28body%29_for_Rock_Band_3_@_E3_Expo_2010.jpg Rock Band 3]]'' the very next year. And ''VideoGame/GuitarHeroLive'' replaced the 5-button controller with one that has 6 buttons.
261* The ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' Medic uses a special device called the Medigun to heal his allies. There is now [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y5H9Sasq5U a spray gun]] that applies stem cells extracted from the patient's skin to treat second-degree burns.
262* ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry5PassionatePattiDoesALittleUndercoverWork'' had the Hard Disk Cafe, a parody of Hard Rock Cafe, but there later appeared a real Hard Disk Cafe in Calgary, AB, Canada. Maybe coincidence.
263* ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeed III: Hot Pursuit'', ''Hot Pursuit 2'', ''Hot Pursuit'' [[Creator/CriterionGames 2010]], and ''Rivals'' showed sports cars being used as police units. Although unbelievable, there is a Lamborghini Gallardo (550-4) in Italy being used as an [[http://img.infocoches.com/img/lamborghini/2004-Gallardo_Police_Car/lamborghini_2004-Gallardo_Police_Car-006_3.jpg interceptor]] unit.
264* Remember the Air Taser that you could use to light enemies on fire in ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter''? Several real life accidents have occured where people were lit on fire by police tasers, usually involving flammable liquids.
265* Obscure Super Famicom [[SoBadItsGood kuso-ge]] ''VideoGame/HongKong97'''s plot involved turning the recently deceased "[[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Tong Shau Ping]]" (Deng Xiaoping) into a weapon. The game was made in 1995, while Deng actually died in 1997.
266* In ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', there was a point at which carp accidentally became the most monstrous beasts in the world, dragging a dwarf into water and tearing him to shreds while they drowned. The dwarven "leaders" tackle this problem the same way they tackle any other problem: doing nothing. In real life, a invasive species of Asian Carp has appeared in the Great Lakes. It has a tendency to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfG4vsJ5_xI jump]], and while it doesn't exactly tear people apart, they have been known to knock people out of small boats. In true ''Dwarf Fortress'' form, what has the government decided to do about this invasive species? Nothing.
267* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'', the Chinese field aircraft generically known as [[UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets Mikoyan-Gurevich fighters (MiGs)]]. Visually they're based on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG_1.44 MiG MFI, 1.44, and 1.42]] series, which never saw production and only got a maiden flight long after the projects had been canceled. However, in the real world China is developing the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-20 Chengdu J-20]], which looks very similar to the [=MiG=] 1.44 family and is slated to enter service during the years ''Generals'' takes place.
268* There must have been a few ''VideoGame/{{Battlezone|1980}}'' fans at BAE Systems and Polish Defence Holding. Their tank concept PL-01, [[http://www.armyrecognition.com/mspo_2013_show_daily_news_coverage_report/polish_defence_holding_unveil_new_tank_at_mspo_international_defence_industry_exhibition.html which they unveiled]] at the 2013 MSPO International Defence Industry Exhibition, is suspiciously similar in shape to the tanks of that game.
269* One of the subplots in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' involves ADAM, an NSA code breaker who fled to Russia. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden Edward Snowden]], anyone?
270* In the original installment of Tom Clancy's ''VideoGame/GhostRecon1'', the first few missions of the game center on a U.S.-led armed intervention in the Republic of Georgia in the wake of a Russian invasion amidst the impending restoration of the Soviet Union. Oddly enough, the Russians did invade Georgia after the latter's attempt to restore government control over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the latter being a major setting in the game. (Also, this brief conflict took place in 2008, the same year in which the game takes place.)
271** A lesser example exists in ''Island Thunder'', where the Ghosts are tasked with safeguarding democratic elections on Cuba after the death of Fidel Castro in 2006. Castro did concede power to his brother Raul Castro in the wake of ill health that year and eventually passed in 2016.
272* [[EpisodicGame The first part of]] ''Byteria Saga: Heroine Iysayana'' was released in 2003, the titular [[AntiHero anti-heroine]] being an blonde [[ReallyGetsAround slut]] and HardDrinkingPartyGirl. Shortly before the events of the game, Iysayana and Odil had been drunk enough to spontaneously marry, then gotten divorced again within a few days or so. Less than a year later, Music/BritneySpears did almost the same in RealLife, which was eventually referenced in Chapter Three of the game.
273* F.L.U.D.D.'s Hover Nozzle feature in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'' is eerily similar to the [[http://web.archive.org/web/20150725234649/http://tiwibzone.tiwib.netdna-cdn.com/images/water-jet-pack-jetlev.jpg real-life water-propelled jetpacks]] that would eventually come into being well after the game's conception.
274* In ''VideoGame/MarioStrikers Charged Football'', if you score a goal against Bowser Jr. there might be a sequence of him [[AgonyOfTheFeet kicking a goal post in anger, only to hurt his foot]]. A year later, Campino of Music/DieTotenHosen made the news when one of his favorite clubs, Liverpool F.C., lost the UsefulNotes/UEFAChampionsLeague semi-final and he picked the wrong garbage can to kick.
275* ''VideoGame/MaddenNFL'':
276** ''Madden NFL 15'' predicted in a simulation of UsefulNotes/SuperBowl XLIX that the New England Patriots would win against the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 after being down 14-24 in the third quarter. They did just that, although it took Seattle to make a ''huge'' mistake on their final play to make it happen, not a Hail Mary pass by quarterback Tom Brady. [[PopCultureUrbanLegends Bonus points for having Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman on the cover.]]
277** Some unorthodox football strategies gained acceptance in the real NFL in part because ''Madden'' made them common knowledge amongst football fans. These include [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OK3pa51v-Q going for it on 4th down in your own territory,]] running parallel to the goal line to burn off extra seconds, and deliberately stopping at the one yard line to burn off more time rather than scoring. (Hilariously, the Jets tried the ''Madden'' counter-strategy of ''allowing'' the opponent to score, but the Jaguars refused.)
278** The "running parallel to the goal line" is an interesting twist. In reality, this play has occurred at least as far back as [[http://www.bucpower.com/video95.html Buccaneers safety Neal Colzie's interception return]] in the 1981 season opener, showing that it existed before ''Madden''. However, the modern generation of football players (and even a good number of coaches) are going to recognize the strategy much more from playing ''Madden''. This makes Colzie's return something of an UnbuiltTrope for the strategy.
279* The plot of ''[[VideoGame/MegaManZero Mega Man Zero 4]]'' was that refugees from Neo Arcadia were fleeing to the crash site of [[VideoGame/MegaManX the Eurasia Space Colony]], which had naturally regrown the whole century since the crash due to environmental conditioning equipment in the wreckage that remained functional. Real-life nature said "fuck that" and [[http://kotaku.com/fukushima-evacuation-area-overrun-with-vegetation-1798337117 reclaimed the Fukushima Daiichi area in seven years]].
280* ''VideoGame/MortalKombatVsDCUniverse'' marked the final ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' game marketed under the Midway Games banner. Who would gain control of the franchise in the aftermath? WB Games. And who owns Creator/DCComics? Creator/WarnerBros (Scorpion even [[GuestFighter showed up]] in Netherrealm Studios' first non-''Mortal Kombat'' fighting game, ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'', a DC Comics fighting game).
281* Heisting simulator ''VideoGame/Payday2'''s publisher, Starbreeze Studios, was raided by police (on suspicions of one or more employees committing insider trading following the company facing financial restructuring following the poor sales of several of its ventures after the release of ''Payday 2'') mere weeks after the game's story was concluded.
282* Like the Joker at the start of ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'', [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abimael_Guzm%C3%A1n Abimael Guzmán]]'s body was incinerated by the government as a public service, because, to quote the game's novelization, "Even dead, he scared the shit out of them."
283* Since the game ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' was set in a dystopian future Ukraine, some [[https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/u1kh2g/this_is_not_half_life_3_this_is_the_road_of_death/ footage of the country's wreckage strewn roads]] in 2022 during the Russian Invasion, shares an uncanny resemblance. As a bonus, this [[https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/teo4nv/russia_is_scary/ scene from Russia's Putin]] matches the "Breen cast" broadcasts throughought the game.
284* The game ''VideoGame/IronLung'' presents the idea of being bolted into a barely functioning ramshackle submarine and sent deeper than it was ever intended to, all the while having no idea what's outside. The developer noted he had mostly relied on RuleOfScary, and couldn't have imagined it happening in real life. But many fans were quick to point out the eerie resemblance in 2023, when Oceangate sent a poorly-built submarine (allegedly operated by a ''Logitech controller'') full of rich tourists down to the ''Titanic'' only to lose contact with the sub and kill all of its passengers. As a result, the developer noted that sales of the game during that period skyrocketed.
285* While the Atlantidean technology shown in ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheFateOfAtlantis'' is clearly SchizoTech bought about by AncientAstronauts, they are started by ''Orichalcum'' -- pearl white beads that seem to be a power source. Interestingly, in RealLife, research and development into making safer nuclear power plants has led to the creation of specialized ceramics that can contain fissile material, rendering it safe for handling and use, all in the form of pearl white pellets.
286* ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' (1999) feature a maglev train running between Goldenrod City, the Pokémon world equivalent of Osaka, and Saffron City, the equivalent of Tokyo. Construction of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chūō_Shinkansen Chūō Shinkansen]] began in 2014, a maglev connecting Tokyo to Nagoya, with an extension to Osaka to follow.
287* The logo of the Spartan Rangers used in ''VideoGame/Metro2033'' was eventually adopted as the emblem of the pro-Russian Sparta Batalion fighting in the Eastern Ukraine since 2014. [[note]]Much to the dismay of Dmitry Glukhovsky, the creator of the series.[[/note]]
288[[/folder]]
289
290[[folder:Webcomics]]
291* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'': Near the end of a recent story arc, some robots are discussing the implications of their status as citizens. One robot wonders if that means representation. Another wonders if representation will lead to taxation. In early 2017, Microsoft creator Bill Gates [[https://www.ft.com/content/d04a89c2-f6c8-11e6-9516-2d969e0d3b65 proposed taxing robots or the profits derived from them.]]
292* There are doubtless a couple of people keeping lists of the number of times life has imitated ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}''. To wit:
293** Cory Doctorow has worn a cape and goggles to an event.
294** Richard Stallman has a [[KatanasAreJustBetter katana.]] I repeat: ''Richard Stallman'', one of the fathers of GNU/Linux, ''has a freaking katana.''
295*** ...which was given to him by XKCD fans. Though he has joked that the only use he can think of for it is to "keep it by my bed".
296** [[https://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/ People playing chess (and checkers, Jenga, Go, and a house of cards) on roller coasters.]]
297** Geohashing.
298** A [[http://xkcd.com/481/ strip]] involved [[ThoseTwoGuys that guy with the black hat's girlfriend]] writing a virus that would cause a Website/YouTube comment to read itself aloud to the poster before being posted. Website/YouTube responded by adding an "Audio Preview" feature to their comment boxes (but not making it mandatory).
299** A protester holding up a "[[[Website/ThatOtherWiki citation needed]]]" [[http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1432/1429610103_4050160f56.jpg banner]].
300** In [[http://xkcd.com/591/ this comic]] [[Literature/TheTwilightSaga Stephenie Meyer]] beats Website/FourChan at its [[{{Troll}} own game]]. Moot (4chan's owner) replied by temporarily replacing /b/'s title by "Twilight appreciation zone".
301[[/folder]]
302
303[[folder:Web Original]]
304* In ''Website/{{Cracked}}'':
305** The tendency of SF authors to prophesy future inventions is one of [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-realizations-that-will-ruin-science-fiction-you/ 4 Realizations That Will Ruin Science Fiction for You]].
306** [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20379_5-important-things-you-wont-believe-comic-books-invented.html 5 Important Things You Won't Believe Comic Books Invented]] shows how Music/ElvisPresley's appearance, ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', and even ankle bracelets for monitoring criminals came from old comic books.
307** It's Cracked at it again with [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18846_6-eerily-specific-inventions-predicted-in-science-fiction.html 6 Eerily Specific Inventions Predicted in Sci Fi]].
308** [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17370_7-completely-unrealistic-movie-plots-that-came-true.html 7 Completely Unrealistic Movie Plots That Came True]]. Such offenders include ''Film/OfficeSpace'', ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption'', ''Film/ThreeKings'', and others.
309* Skippy of ''Literature/SkippysList'' joked about Chem-Light batteries existing, before they actually did.
310* ''Website/TheOnion'' has had a few prophetic articles.
311** In 1999, it ran a piece attributed to Creator/StephenKing titled "I Don't Even Remember Writing ''Literature/TheTommyknockers'' ", claiming that the sheer number of books he'd written had caused him to forget about that and a number of his other books. The following year, the real King admitted he didn't remember writing ''Literature/{{Cujo}}'', but attributed it to the fact that he was addicted to drugs and alcohol at the time and was usually under the influence when he wrote.
312** [[https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades-1819584036 Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades]]
313[[/folder]]
314
315[[folder:Web Videos]]
316* ''WebVideo/LoadingReadyRun'''s WebVideo/FeedDump segment, where they talk about strange news stories, has one episode where they are aggrieved to discover the existence of an app for hiring people to beat someone up, pointing out that was literally a [[http://loadingreadyrun.com/videos/view/2150/Punchr sketch they did]].
317[[/folder]]
318
319[[folder:Western Animation]]
320* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/AeonFlux'', a woman who had a chunk of her spine shot out by a gun turret was able to have screaming orgasms by having the remaining nerves dangling from the gap stimulated with surgical tools. In what must be the absolute weirdest example of this, a few years later some doctors tried this in RealLife & found it actually works.
321* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': In what might be the most startling example of this, in 2007, a former Laotian general [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Laotian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_conspiracy_allegation allegedly trained]] a paramilitary group in America to retake Laos from the communists. Two years ''earlier'' in the episode "Orange You Sad I Did Say Banana?", a former Laotian general trained a paramilitary group in America to retake Laos from the communists.
322* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' examples:
323** "Bart to the Future" presents three ideas for America's political future that have since become more considerable issues: the U.S. has handled its increasing foreign debt like an irresponsible person shrugging off bill collectors, marijuana legalization has been given more actual consideration, and we did indeed get a President Trump.[[note]]At the time of the episode’s airing, Trump had recently run for the Reform Party nomination in the 2000 election before eventually dropping out.[[/note]]
324** In the episode "The Mansion Family", Homer takes Mr. Burns' yacht into international waters to avoid state blue laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Sunday. After mocking the Coast Guard's inability to do anything to stop them the yacht is seized by pirates. When appealing to the Coast Guard for help the crew replies, sarcastically, that "Navy [=SEALs=] are on the way". In 2009, when the Maersk Alabama [[Film/CaptainPhillips was hijacked by Somali pirates]], the first such hijacking of an American flagged vessel since the 19th century, Navy [=SEALs=] ''were'' dispatched to the scene, shooting three of the pirates from the rear of a Navy destroyer and rescuing the hijacked crew.
325** In "Trash of the Titans", Homer is elected sanitation commissioner of Springfield, but he ends up spending his entire year's budget in one month. Homer recoups the money by having other cities pay him to mash their excess garbage into a nearby mine shaft. But it proves too much, and Springfield ends up so badly trashed [[spoiler:that the town has to be moved five miles down the road.]] In Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the Toronto City Council had seriously considered turning the abandoned Adams Mine into a dumping site for Toronto's garbage until then-councilors Jack Layton and Olivia Chow showed them this episode, and they immediately changed their minds.
326** In "The Trouble with Trillions", Cuba is facing economic collapse, prompting Fidel Castro to think about reaching out to the United States. They bounce back when they take the 1 trillion dollar bill from Mr. Burns. In December 2014 Cuba was facing economic collapse due to the collapse in Venezuelan oil subsidies so President Raul Castro, Fidel's brother and successor, reached out to US President Obama and and restored diplomatic ties, significantly eroding the 50+ year embargo between the 2 nations.
327** In "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas", Homer gets in trouble at an Easter egg hunt when he tries to steal eggs from kids' baskets to please Maggie. In 2016, a PEZ-sponsored egg hunt descended into chaos with reports of parents stealing eggs from other children.
328** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E22TheySavedLisasBrain They Saved Lisa's Brain]]", Creator/StephenHawking mentions he may steal the idea of a "donut-shaped universe" that Homer has explained to him off-screen. In modern physics, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-torus_model_of_the_universe Three-torus model]] ''is'' a real theory of the shape of the universe, and makes more sense than you may think.[[note]]Basically, the theory proposes that the universe is finite but loops in on itself, and a "donut" shape is a logical result of explaining how that could work. However, the theory was proposed in 1984, long before the episode.[[/note]]
329** A quick BitingTheHandHumor gag in “When You Dish Upon a Star” shows the [[Creator/TwentiethCenturyStudios 20th Century Fox]] logo with the words “A Division of [[Creator/{{Disney}} Walt Disney Co.]]” - 21 years later, that sale indeed happened, though Fox was renamed less than a year after the deal was finalized.
330** 1995's "A Star is Burns" has a brief appearance by The Rappin' Rabbis, who wear Hasidic clothing onstage and sing about Judaism. It sure didn't sound plausible at the time, but a decade later, rap and reggae artist Matisyahu would achieve fame doing exactly that.
331** In season 12's "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E11WorstEpisodeEver Worst Episode Ever]]", after Comic Book Guy suffers a heart attack, Bart and Milhouse take his place running his comic book store, where they uncover his secret stash of video tapes, one of which is ''[[Film/TheGodfather Godfather III]]: [[TakeThat Good Version]]''. In 2020, Creator/FrancisFordCoppola released a recut of ''The Godfather: Part III'', titled ''The Godfather Coda'', which proved to be better-received than the original release.
332* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
333** Season 10 featured a two-parter entitled "Cartoon Wars," which focuses on Creator/{{Fox}}'s dilemma over what to do about broadcasting an uncensored image of Muhammad on ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''. Cartman argues that they're putting themselves in danger by agreeing to show the character (though he's really only doing this because he hates the show, as Creator/TreyParkerAndMattStone do in real life), while Kyle's argument, that eventually wins the executives over, is that they're just giving in to demands. In-story, the network agrees to let it go uncensored, but viewers don't see this; the "censored" message was real, as Creator/ComedyCentral refused to show Muhammad on television. [[note]]The episode ends with a terrorist-produced retaliation featuring cardboard cut-outs of Creator/TomCruise, [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush George Bush]], various Americans and Jesus defecating all over each other and onto the US flag, which [[DoubleStandard went completely uncensored]].[[/note]] [[Recap/SouthParkS14E6TwoHundredOne Four years later]], Comedy Central wussed out about showing Muhammad (as Kyle had warned Fox not to), also censoring the customary ending speech (which didn't mention Muhammad at all and was about giving in to fear and intimidation). Parker and Stone were ''[[CreatorBacklash not]]'' pleased; Trey even threatened to quit the show afterward.
334** "[[Recap/SouthParkS6E9FreeHat Free Hat]]" had an example that saw events play out the reverse way in real life. Said episode portrays Creator/StevenSpielberg as the mastermind behind all the alterations being made, with Creator/GeorgeLucas weakly following along; in real life, Spielberg came to regret changing ''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' and made sure all future theatrical and home releases of the film were the original version, while Lucas continued to alter the ''Franchise/StarWars'' films up until Disney bought the rights.
335* ''WesternAnimation/AvengersAssemble'' would see Creator/RogerCraigSmith, Creator/TravisWillingham, and Creator/LauraBailey cast in the respective roles of ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, ComicBook/TheMightyThor, and ComicBook/BlackWidow. Hell, during Halloween circa the first season, they dressed up as their respective characters.
336* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': Rick dismisses a group of hecklers with the line "Your boos mean nothing! I've seen what makes you cheer!". In a discussion about women's health issues, Pennsylvania Democratic State Representative Brian Sims was being booed by his Republican colleagues, to which he responded "Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for."
337* ''WesternAnimation/InsideJob2021'' combines this with RealitySubtext: The first episode deals with the efforts of main character Reagan, a dedicated workaholic, being overshadowed by Brett, who basically does nothing besides be white, male, and likable. Very ironic considering that the show itself was created, written, and helmed by Shion Takeuchi, but most of the praise almost automatically went to executive producer Creator/AlexHirsch due to his high esteem in the animation community for his creation of ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''.
338[[/folder]]
339
340[[folder:Real Life]]
341* Leonardo da Vinci thought of a helicopter 500 years before it was made. As noted at the top of the page, Life Imitates Art [[ArtImitatesArt Imitates Art]] [[TruthInTelevision Imitates art Imitates Life]]. Chinese toy helicopters from circa 400 [=BC=] may have been depicted in European painting prior to Leonardo's time.
342* {{Ray Gun}}s were common in fiction for decades, but it was not hard science, because you just couldn't actually make a weapon just by shooting energy alone. Then the laser was invented in the 1960s. Though you still can't build a gun out of them. Heavy artillery, ''maybe''. Pistols? It's going to take a while. You can buy a laser "pointer" powerful enough to set fire to paper. It's not a lethal weapon but we're getting a lot closer. So far, using lasers as weapons hasn't managed to get past AwesomeButImpractical. Humans are made primarily of water, and water takes an awful lot of energy to heat up. You can give someone a pretty bad burn with a laser, but it's hard to actually ''kill'' someone with one. Blinding on the other hand, or causing [[YourDaysAreNumbered skin cancer]]! Blinding can also cause plane crashes, as there have been reports of people pointing their lasers skyward and being arrested for it. On the other hand, military (and perhaps even civilian) aircrafts will soon be equipped with missile-destroying chemical lasers.
343** Laser cannons are now a [[http://singularityhub.com/2013/01/07/german-military-laser-destroys-targets-over-1km-away/ reality.]]
344** One avenue of research towards this is for cinema accurate blasters is the plasma bullet, superhot plasma encased in an electromagnetic field. This would provide the laser appearance and the slower visible speed while maintaining the effectiveness.
345** Electrolaser rifles[[note]]which use a laser to rarefy a line of air by energizing it, then fires a beam of high voltage electricity through it[[/note]] are the closest we're probably ever going to get to sci-fi ray guns. Their main use is BombDisposal.
346** While primitive in appearance and construction, one can't deny that this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzUoe-9bKa0 "laser bazooka"]] certainly fits the mold of a scrap-punk ray gun.
347** Getting away from lasers, there's also the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System Active Denial System]], aka the [[Radio/TheWarOfTheWorlds heat ray]]. All those shows where the villain tortures the hero with a beam of pain? Now we've got one.
348* "Kremvax" started as one of several fictional Vax computers joining the internet on April 1, 1984, which was an April Fools joke by Piet Beertema. When the first genuine Moscow site joined the internet, its gateway machine soon was kremvax.demos.su
349* Predictive programming conspiracy theories list examples of imagery in popular media resembling plane crashes and damage to the World Trade Center before the September 11th attacks, claiming this is evidence of foreknowledge of the attacks rather than being coincidental.
350* As mentioned above, [[TankGoodness tanks]] are notable for the fact that they were an entirely fictional concept for a long time before RealLife decided that they'd be useful for the purpose of war, with the invention of a reliable and compact internal combustion engine and the caterpillar track making them practical to build.
351* Invoked with the Science Channel series ''Sci Fi Science''. Dr. Michio Kaku discusses current technology and theories that would allow the creation of science fiction as reality. Justified in that scientists look to science fiction as inspiration to recreate the entertainment they enjoy.
352* Over on Youtube, the Hacksmith has created a real-life, honest-to-goodness, lightsaber. Yes, it's a protosaber, because RealLife doesn't have batteries of the capacity and size necessary to create a lightsaber of the type seen in the Franchise/StarWars films yet, and it can't clash with other devices of the same name due to it essentially being a massive plasma cutter, but it's real, and hell if it isn't awesome.
353* {{Sexbot}}s were the stuff of ScienceFiction for many decades, perhaps going as far back as [[Literature/TheMetamorphoses Galatea]] for a loose definition of "artificial companion". Various sex toy companies are racing to make it a reality, slowly adding robotic components to existing sex dolls enabling things like speech, movement, or body heating. It'll be a long while before they're walking around, but walking robots are also [[https://youtu.be/tF4DML7FIWk becoming more advanced every day]].
354* During a high-profile "name and shame" public naming of suspected paedophiles in the United Kingdom in 2000, ''Magazine/PrivateEye'' featured a cartoon of a paediatrician being chased by a hate mob who had misunderstood his job title. During the shelf life of the magazine, a hate mob vandalised a paediatrician's house in South Wales.
355[[/folder]]

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