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Harsher In Hindsight / Web Original

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Web originals with their own pages


Specific Creators:

  • Shoegazer Productions' 2Beats+ is this in spades. The video series was started in 2014, but took more than a year for show creator, Randy McNeely, to get off the ground. His then best friend, Alan Zuvy, had pitched the idea of a web review series to help him with deep depression connected to him being kicked out of a band. Alan played a minor role in the series as one of Fred's henchmen. There were a few notable times Randy mentioned him as a close and dear friend, since he mentions a lot of personal stories in his reviews. In January of 2016, after a few months of living with Randy, he posted a V-Log stating that the channel was on something of a hiatus because he had just discovered his roommates had become drug addicts and he had to focus on getting the situation cleared up. He had also stated that things were missing, and he had to hide Fred (who is a parrot) in fear that he was going to be harmed as well. The video has since been removed due to it revealing too much personal information about people that had not agreed to have that information revealed. One of those people was, according to some rumors, Alan. Seeing as how Alan has not appeared in any videos since the incident, it is strongly suspected that he is one of the addicts. It is now very painful to watch Alan involved in Fred's antics, as there were multiple references to drug trade (Fred ran something of a mafia in the series). It's painful just watching a friendship of 16 years go by the wayside thanks to addiction.
    • Fast-forward to February of 2017 and apparently Randy is having battles of his own with alcohol abuse. He made an announcement in the form of a V-Log and, while much of the fanbase was in support of his attempt to clean himself up, much of the fanbase backlashed against him. One particular fan had apparently pointed out his hypocrisy on the issue, having forced people with substance problems out of his life, but not being able to handle his own problems. To be fair, he wasn't addicted, just drinking to excess, and was making an effort to fix the problem, unlike the people he talked about in the aforementioned video (at least at the time, anyways).
  • Achievement Hunter:
    • In one Let's Play, the team was playing Rainbow Six: Vegas and the crew began wondering if Tom Clancy was still alive or not. Ray looked it up and found out that, yup, Tom Clancy was still alive. About an hour after the video was posted, Tom Clancy was declared dead. Of course, this lead to a lot of funny YouTube comments on the video declaring that Geoff, who was a horrible shot that game, killed Tom Clancy.
    • This happened so much that the gang actually discuss this. Jack Patillo attempts to invoke this when playing the various Worms games by naming his worms after unpopular political figures, but after awhile, they come to the conclusion that it only works if they're discussing someone unintentionally.
    • Many things about Ryan Haywood of Achievement Hunter became this, such as his Comedic Sociopathy, the "Ryan is secretly creepy" shtick and his "hot dad" status. In October 2020, Ryan was found to have been very inappropriate with many female fans, some being underaged, and was fired by Rooster Teeth after compromising material of him leaked online, leading to the allegations. The jokes about him and Meg having an affair, more to annoy Meg's boyfriend Gavin, were now seen as very uncomfortable in light of this. Michael lampshaded this in their first stream after the scandal, where he bitterly remarks how so much older stuff now looks terrible in hindsight. Adam Kovic of Funhaus had almost the exact same scenario happen at that same time.
  • Alex Day and Charlieissocoollike were at one point as thick as thieves, with many jokes about how they would be married together and inseparable. By 2014, the latter publicly ended their friendship in disgust at the former's actions.
    • On a similar note, the song "Mrs Nerimon", written by Kristina Horner, was a song about how she wanted to be married to him and spend the rest of their lives together. In 2014, it became apparent that Alex had not only been emotionally manipulative to her, but had also been abusive to some of his other girlfriends in various ways. This was all on top of the revelations that Kristina had been emotionally and sexually abused by one of her ex-boyfriends, Luke Conard.
  • The Angry Video Game Nerd:
    • In the NES Superman review, he makes a big deal about how part of the plot of the game involves Clark being sent to investigate an unexplained drop in stock prices, and how it was a ludicrous element to include in a superhero game. Funny then. Cringe-inducing for anybody with a 401(k) in the wake of the stock market dropping 1,000 points over the course of thirty minutes.
    • The review of Action 52 and Cheetahmen became this as of August 2012, when a Kickstarter project to get a completed version of Cheetahmen II was posted to James' YouTube channel, and subsequently got a huge amount of backlash.
    • The review of Transformers on Famicom featured a Running Gag of James using the hot sauce endorsed by Billy Mitchell; remarking on his world record high scores for Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Mitchell would later be stripped of said records after it was discovered that he had achieved them by using emulation instead of the original arcade hardware.
  • Yaoi-tastic crossover fan-flash Anime Munters at one point shows Hetalia's Japan waist deep in water. Cue the "not funny" comments thanks to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake.
  • A 2014 Annotated Series riff of the Donkey Kong Country episode "Baby Kong Blues" had an annotation over Erika Strobel's Script Writer credit labelled "STOP WRITING YOU HACK". In less than three years, Strobel would commit suicide.
  • Try watching this exclusive episode of Ask That Guy with the Glasses included on the Kickassia DVD, where Ask That Guy (who, remember, is played by Doug) rants about how the site doesn't like any of the producers, even the ones in the movie.
  • A few hours after the Columbia disaster, the Associated Press website had an article on its return. The article described the events of the Columbia's safe landing and the happy comments of the crew in detail. It is unknown whether the false details were placeholders meant to be replaced after real details were learned or outright fabrication. Either way, the article was pulled so fast that its head spun.
  • Bad Movie Beatdown:
    • The Film Brain and Todd in the Shadows crossover review has Matt panicking at the sight of Todd, mistaking him for a "hoodie", which may have been partly due to him being of unclear race. This took a dark twist after the Travon Martin case.
    • In the Film Brain/Welshy crossover review of Texas Chainsaw 3D, a joke is made repeatedly throughout the video about Welshy being sad and angry that Matt Smith left Doctor Who. Due to time related to editing the video, it wouldn't be put up until mid-February. Two weeks before the video went up, JewWario killed himself, which changes the context of the comments about the people you love leaving you.
  • Brows Held High: In Kyle Kallgren's review of Andy Warhol's Vinyl, he explained how the acting was bad because the actors were all "dragged there, tired and confused" with little direction and no compensation, before adding: "By the way, the fourth year shoot was fun." This is a lot harsher after a number of former Channel Awesome reviewers alleged mistreatment by management in 2018, which was backed up by Doug in his commentary where he talked about having a breakdown and making everyone miserable while he forced himself to keep going.
  • Channel Awesome: Many crossovers and anniversary specials are starting to leave a bitter aftertaste when watched nowadays. All of them try to create an atmosphere of a bunch of friends/colleagues having fun, while in the passing years many reviewers at this point have left the site, with April 2018 as the biggest walk-out of former Channel Awesome members. In most of the cases behind-the-scenes squabbling and complaints about payments have been the major issue, with Obscurus Lupa, Phelous and JesuOtaku in particular being the most vocal about how badly the site is run. Jesu even went so far to say: "(...) If it's any consolation, I think 'nice' is not an inaccurate positive descriptor for Doug. He's not some horrible asshole. He's nice, as in that Into the Woods line, 'You're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice.' I'm sure many people would find his actions throughout the history of CA to not be malicious or cruel in any way. He is just immature, self-absorbed, terrible at managing or communicating with people...he's just a giant Manchild, and those kinds of people aren't all fun and games, they do serious damage when they refuse to act like adults." Even Lindsay Ellis, who left the site too in early 2015 (albeit on good terms) acknowledged just like JesuOtaku did that Doug is a nice person in general "but he is most definitely in his own world, and he seems to have a hard time understanding that not everyone can work with the same relentless pace he does (I never could.) He does have something of a talent for turning a blind eye." This makes Doug's portrayal of himself as an egotistical Bad Boss who mistreats his co-workers and ignores their pleas and remarks in many of his crossover videos far less amusing.
  • Chase Melendez, a Youtube humorist (known primarily for his criticism of Confused Matthew , which included a nine part video response to CM's 2001 review), posted a video blog titled "Rumors of Chase's Death Greatly Exaggerated". Then he dies a few days later of (what is rumored to be, though his obituary doesn't state what his exact cause of death was) an accidental drug overdose. Yikes...
  • Towarda the end of this Shane Dawson video guest starring Christina Grimmie, the latter sweetly claims she's part of Shane's "fan army". Shane jokingly replies, "You're the one with the gun who doesn't know how to use it. You're just shooting everywhere and people are dying." This former burst of Black Comedy became horrifying after Christina was gunned down during a meet-and-greet in 2016.
    • In a "get-to-know" video posted by Grimmie, she said that her mother initially didn't want her to post videos because she was afraid "some creepy man would come and hunt her down." She was right.
  • During Chuggaaconroy's Let's Play of Super Mario Sunshine, a fair amount of humour came from how the game screwed him over, whether it was the time he had a power outage whilst recording, or the difficulty with the watermelon stage, or how frustrating the game was in parts. It became a lot less funny however, when (during his LP of Majora's Mask) Chuggaaconroy revealed that during the LP of Sunshine he'd been suffering from a Creator Breakdown, and was trying to hide it.
    • On a more meta note, his Bill Cosby impressions from his earlier Let's-Plays (and that one episode of Mario Party 4 on The Runaway Guys) have fallen in immensely bad taste in light of Cosby's ongoing rape scandal and subsequent court case, which made Chugga's impressions of the guy go from comical to cringeworthy.
  • The cinnamon challenge, for a while, was one of the most popular, hysterical memes to do on YouTube. But it's a little unsettling to laugh at them since a four-year-old boy choked to death on cinnamon, proving that consuming raw cinnamon is very dangerous.
  • The Cinema Snob:
    • Brad Jones' videos with Jerrid and Jake can no longer be watched in the same way, seeing that he had a serious fall-out with both friends. Jerrid was kicked off the site in 2013 over too many offensive remarks about Brad's friends, particularly his then-wife Jillian. (Brad and Jerrid reconciled, but their friendship has become on-again, off-again.) In 2015, Jake was forced to go after making a move on Rayn, a girl Brad had also been interested in.note  Ironically, his relationship with Jillian is the only one that didn't become harsher in hindsight, even though they got a divorce.
    • Any cute or heartwarming moments regarding Brad and his relationship with Violet sadly fell into this after she dumped him, devastating Brad and the fanbase. To make matters worse, Brad revealed on his Tumblr that they were engaged when it happened.
    • There's also Dave Gobble, who's a base-breaker with Brad's fans, and is still a good friend of his, while, ironically, Jerrid and Jake were well liked by the site's patrons.
    • Brad Jones is a big fan of Tequila and Bonetti, a short-lived show starring an NYPD officer who moves to California after accidentally killing an innocent, unarmed black kid. While reviewing the first episode, Brad got sorta-serious for a moment and said "It would be very hard to do this show nowadays," in reference to the spate of high-profile instances of police shooting unarmed black people in The New '10s.
  • CollegeHumor:
  • On May 10th, 2020, YouTuber Corey La Barrie posted a short vlog titled "Deleting This Video in 24 Hours". In it, he talks about his 25th birthday celebration that day and how he and his friends "might get a little drunk". The next morning, the video was still up...because Corey had been killed by his drink-driving friend, fellow YouTuber and tattoo artist Daniel Silva, who had crashed a car in which he was a passenger.
  • Cracked:
    • As part of "Batman Week", they had a live action/animated video called "Fuck Batman" that featured at the end of it a few dead bodies (some penguins, but one human) splattering blood in the shape of the Batman logo. Worse still, the video was made in advance and put out the same day as news of the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting (which occurred during the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises) circulated.
    • The article "5 Movie Scenes That Aged In Unexpectedly Horrifying Ways" is about scenes in films that have been subject to this trope.
    • Several examples in this article.
    • The fact that the last After Hours, although no one knew it would be the last at the time, ends on the implication that they're in hell. Forever.
  • In September, comedy group Cyndago uploaded a video entitled "WATCH CYNDAGO DYE!"note . Just one week after the video was uploaded, Cyndago member Daniel Kyre committed suicide.
  • The website Damn You Autocorrect celebrated the release of The Dark Knight Rises by putting up a collection of movie-related autocorrect fails which were set up on July 19th,2012, but didn't hit the site until the next day. The headline was something about "Lighten Your Day After a Dark Night" and the intro text had a reference to the movie "making a killing at the box office". Naturally, it had to be quickly pulled after the Aurora, CO shootings.
  • More 9/11 premonitions on the Dark Roasted Blend website.
  • Dice, Camera, Action!: The relationship between Diath and Strix became a lot less comfortable when fans learned that Jared Knabenbauer was having an affair with Holly Conrad. Diath's habit of hiding unpleasant things he has done and knows from his friends to manage their perceptions of him also becomes more uncomfortable in the wake of accusations that surfaced in the wake of Jared's divorce.
  • Digressing & Sidequesting:
    • Any instances of Self-Deprecation on the show are seen in a sad light due to Ronnie himself committing suicide.
    • This video, when discussing EarthBound's development, talks about Satoru Iwata's role, ending with a joke that "in 2018, he eventually became supreme ruler of the everything". It's a lot harder to stomach with Iwata's passing in 2015.
  • In the wake of the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting, the "Slipping" scene in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is pretty uncomfortable to watch.
  • One of the questions in a Russian language exercise on Duolingo translates as "Where is Ukraine?" This was probably made before Putin's invasion.
  • In The Editing Room's "abridged script" for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry jokes about his "uncle" not being in the next movie thanks to a heart attack. The actor playing Vernon Dursley, Richard Griffiths, died from complications of heart surgery at the age of 65.
  • This 2007 parody video called "Elmo upsets Little Miss Shy", later renamed "Elmo becomes a molester", in which Elmo tries to take Little Miss Shy home to supposedly molest her and eventually gets pissed at her. It's not funny now thanks to the fact that Elmo's puppeteer, Kevin Clash, resigned after being accused of having sexual relationships with underaged boys.
  • Filthy Frank:
    • The many scenes with Pink Guy having seizures become rather uncomfortable to watch when we learn George has a medical condition that he's had since youth that causes seizures.
      • Also, there's a line in Pink Guy's "Big Mama" rap that states, "And when I'm not on my pill / my brain deteriorates and I go insane."
    • The song "Nickelodeon Girls" describes that rough sex with singer Ariana Grande will "put her in a coma" and "put her in a coffin." Consider the fact that this was before the attack on her Manchester concert. Though she wasn't hurt physically, she was extremely broken up about the victims.
      • It also doesn't help that Pink Guy coughs up blood on posters of various Nickelodeon actresses throughout the video.
      • The insistence in the chorus that Dan Schneider is "ruining his business" by not putting hot girls on the channel is also harsher after Nickelodeon fired Schneider in 2018, with unconfirmed theories that it may have been due to the long-standing rumors of his pedophilia.
  • The Fine Brothers' "College Kids React to XXXTentacion" video was posted about a week before the rapper's murder in June 2018 and the internet's semi-divided reaction to it. Granted, it was a request by commenters who had no idea that would happen, but...
  • GameChap made a video regarding Pixelmon (a Minecraft mod which adds Pokémon into the mix) which revealed some malicious programming on the part of the mod team, and how they had been subsequently silenced, causing the community to rally to Gamechap's side and condemn the mod team. Come later in 2014, there is a Reddit post about a rather major scandal involving Gamechap's supposed stealing of fan-submitted content and his subsequent silencing of any criticism directed towards him and his past history of doing so (most notably those that were trying to play devil's advocate during the whole Pixelmon debacle). The revelation was enough for many long-time fans, plus most of their moderators, to leave the fandom.
  • One episode in the Game Grumps playthrough of Mega Man 7 has Jon mocking Proto Man's vaguely sinister sounding hints (ex. Asking Mega Man to burn down a forest to find a hidden passageway), and Jon creates the dialogue "Mega Man, I need you to gun down a school full of elementary school children." A lot less funny after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, four months after the episode's release.
  • An early YouTube gaming channel called GameLife attended E3 in 2006. During an interview, Dave, one of the hosts, said "We are definitely going to be dishing out episode after episode, and who knows where we will be one year from now?". Less than a year later, on April 17, their frontman, Andrew Rosenblum, was arrested and later sentenced for threatening to shoot up his ex-girlfriend's school the day after the Virginia Tech Massacre. Sponsors quickly withdrew any connection to the channel, and even a prospective gaming show on television was cancelled, which led to GameLife dying off quickly.
  • One mailbag segment on Giant Bomb featured someone gifting them, alongside some expensive toys and some Star Wars merchandise, two airsoft guns (which looked like a handgun and a modern military rifle) and an ammo vest. It included a letter taking the use of the guns very seriously. At the time they treated it like one of the pest packages they had ever gotten, having fun using them, until the guy who sent them was caught shooting and killing his girlfriend. Everything had to be packaged back up and sent to the detectives handling the case.
  • In a 2014 video, toy reviewer Glenn Webb made a joke about using a Magneto action figure to short out his grandpa's pacemaker when he was a kid. In August 2016, Webb died in his sleep from heart failure caused by undiagnosed myocardial fibrosis.
  • The Creepypasta, "Happy Appy" is scary enough with disturbing cartoons and premonitions of disaster — and more. However, it's scarier to note that a company named Happy Apples recalled its stock of candy apples after they were found to be contaminated. Seven people died. This was AFTER the story was finished.
  • Honest Trailers released their Taken trailer that joked a little about how the film made Europe look dangerous and said the message it sent was "don't go to Europe" (while showing a skyline shot of Paris of all places) on January 6th 2015. The "Charlie Hebdo" shooting happened on January 7th, and an even worse terror attack struck the city on November 13th, killing over 100 people.
    • While on Screen Junkies, they celebrated 5 years of the channel with "Top 10 WORST Screen Junkies Show Moments!!". At the time, it was just Self-Deprecation on Old Shame. But two weeks later, channel creator Andy Signore - who of course, is on the video - was fired for sexual harassment, something much worse than whatever happens. To make it worse, #1 opens right away with host Hal Rudnick asking the cast of Anchorman 2 to sit on his lap... no wonder it was erased once the channel broke the silence that followed the dismissal.
    • The roast of Captain America features an example that doubles as this and Hilarious in Hindsight: a joke made at the expense of Black Widow is that the host can "imagine doing that leg-scissoring thing to Thanos and he just throws you into the sun." In Avengers: Infinity War, not only does Thanos throw a moon at the Avengers during the battle on Titan, but Black Widow actually turns out to be one of the few survivors of the film's final battle.
  • Il Neige posted a video titled "Nintendo is Dead". Only two days later, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata passed away at age 55. The video has since been renamed to "The Nintendo Song".
  • Italian Spiderman going around punching women in the face doesn't seem so funny now that domestic violence, or "femicide", has been declared a serious problem in Italian households.
  • In 2017, Jacksepticeye uploaded a video in which he talks about why that particular year was his toughest year on YouTube. At first, he talks about all the good things that happened throughout the year, such as moving to a new apartment, touring, and successfully completing a Christmas charity livestream, but then Jack talks about all of the mental health problems that he suffered the entire year, to the point where he actually took a break in Christmas. Nobody knew what he was dealing with around that time, until 2020 during his "Answering REALLY Personal Questions" video, when Jack revealed he briefly, but seriously considered suicide at the end of 2017.
  • Jacksfilms:
  • JewWario:
    • Every attempt to honor and defend him after his death became this, as not long after the release of the Google document that included an anonymous account of someone grooming young girls for sexual purposes and sexual assault that it was figured out that that it was, in fact, Carmichal who did those things. Kaylyn Saucedo, who originally composed the document and only learned about the accounts when doing so, even regrets making Farewell, FamiKamen Rider in light of what's come out about Carmichal; Lewis Lovhaug similarly regrets moving up a review of Gameboy #3 in honor of Carmichal; Lovhaug and Bennett White removed the JewWario hats they had in memoriam; and many others are pulling the Un-person treatment on him, removing reviews with him in it or reediting them to remove him.
    • Many of his scenes in anniversary specials uncomfortable in retrospect, particularly the Running Gag of his huge bulge in Suburban Knights and how all the women fawn over him.
    • In the Reloaded DVD extras, a joke about JewWario showing his penis equaling a "gross out shot fatality" seems far harsher with the revelation that JewWario was fired from Channel Awesome for committing sexual assault.
  • During "Food Games Part 2", JonTron talks about how the game seems to depict a post apocalyptic New York, but that Trump Tower seemed to still be standing, prompting him to say "Oh god, this is the alternate universe where Trump wins, isn't it?"
  • Lindsay Ellis received a lot of flak for The Nostalgia Chick's Schedule Slip in 2010. Then it got revealed she had an abortion in December 2009 and was spending most of her time doing a documentary about it for her final year in school.
  • LittleKuriboh followed a Heartwarming Moment (the proposal video) with a Funny Moment (Tristan's jab at said video)...and sent them both into a worse place when he announced he and Safty would be getting an annulment. He talks about it here on his livejournal account.
    • Another joke that has become uncomfortable is Yami Bakura being confused by the gaydar on his Millennium Ring being triggered by Kevin Spacey, who he says is "straight as a die." It's far less funny as of 2017, when Spacey came out of the closet amid actor Anthony Rapp accusing Spacey of molesting him at age 14; to a massive public backlash that led to many creators and productions cutting ties with Spacey as a result.
    • His entire parody of Cruel Angel's Thesis where he constantly mocks Shinji for being "gay" and "whiny" is pretty difficult to watch after Little Kuriboh opened up about his depression in real life.
  • Matthew Santoro:
    • On Valentine's Day, 2013, Matt made a vlog to his then-girlfriend, Marci, about how much he loved her, and how he looked forward to spending his life with her. About a year and a half later, they broke up.
    • On Matt's vlog channel, he made a video called "Something Really Cool Happened Today!". Several hours after the upload, Robin Williams committed suicide, so it looks awfully and horribly misleading. Matt came to acknowledge this in the next vlog, which was a full-on tribute for Williams.
    • In The Stinger of Star Wars in 3-D!!!, a fan commenter asks Matt, "You like the beatles right?". He turns around and looks at his posters of The Beatles, and when he turns back to face the camera, he has Beatle hair and gives the commenter a thumbs up. This is Played for Laughs. It became less funny when Matt revealed that he actually isn't a big fan of The Beatles, and that the posters belonged to Marci, his then-girlfriend, whose relationship with Matt ended not too long before Matt revealed that the posters weren't his.
  • Max Landis' tribute to Triple H, Wrestling Isn't Wrestling, cross-cast women as Hunter and all of his partners and enemies. The tribute provided humor when it premiered, but allegations of Landis abusing and harassing women now makes it harder to watch so many work for him. It really doesn't help that the first such allegation came from Anna Akana, who portrayed Batista in Wrestling Isn't Wrestling.
  • Any time MoBrosStudios acted angry or burnt-out in his SpongeBob SquarePants reviews becomes this after it turned out he was suffering a Creator Breakdown and regretting the decision to make the videos due to people seeing him as a rant channel.
  • Infamous YouTube reviewer Trey "Mr. Anime" Sesler posted a video called "Mr. Anime is planning something" and then he murdered his families and pets... Also, to make things worse in an even further back video he quoted:
    "Hey, I'm Mr. Anime, you can call me Trey, or you can call me the guy who does all the video game reviews, or you can call me the guy who does all the gun stuff now."
    • Watching many of his reviews, they are filled with violent imagery and lines that are unquestionably awkward in hindsight:
    "Come on! Why do I not load my guns with more bullets?!"
  • The Music Video Show:
    • The many Take Thats directed at Scott Stapp became less funny in the midst of Stapp becoming penniless in real-life.
    • EVERYTHING in season five through seven after this video was released and revealed that the host had depression during season five and tried to kill herself years earlier. It especially makes Episode 113 a bit hard to watch.
      • The season four trailer has the line, "This season is gonna suck, isn't it?" Turns out this was the LAST season of the show she was happy doing.
      • Her movie reviews get this when she states she tried to kill herself in the same room she shot them in, implying she would kill herself if she did those reviews again.
      • Her Sanity Slippage arc in Season 2 has become this after admitting to suicidal thoughts.
    • During an early season four episode, the host pulls out a life size cardboard cutout of Terry Crews and kisses him, saying "he can be used...any place...any time." A month later, Crews revealed that he was groped by a male Hollywood executive which was during the sexual assault scandals.
  • Cinemasins had a stinger at the end of their video for Justin Bieber: Never Say Never features a clip from Godzilla (1998) of an Air Force colonel telling a couple of pilots to destroy Madison Square Garden, followed by a concert clip, followed by a clip from Godzilla of the arena being blown up. An Ariana Grande (whose target audience is similar to Bieber's) concert in Manchester in 2017 was hit by a terrorist explosion. (Terrorist attacks also affected an Eagles of Death Metal concert in 2015 and the Route 91 Harvest Festival in 2017, but neither have the same target audience as Bieber or Grande.)
    • On December 20th, 2016, its spin-off channel Music Video Sins released their "sinning" of Wham!'s "Last Christmas". George Michael passed away on Christmas Day 2016, only 5 days later.
    • Jeremy’s comments about Avicii in the “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” sins become a lot harder to swallow after the “Wake Me Up” DJ died by suicide in 2018.
  • Myka Stouffer’s videos praising her adoptive son Huxley and Instagram posts saying she “wouldn’t trade him for anything” became harsher in hindsight after she was revealed to have re-homed him when he was 4 because of his special needs.
  • Surrounding Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop:
  • On October 30, 2020, Nicki Swift's YouTube channel added a video titled "This Is Why We Never See Sean Connery Anymore", which detailed Sean Connery's last years as an actor, ending with "Enjoy your retirement, Mister Bond.". The very next day, Connery passed away at age 90.
  • Every so often, the Onion's satirical stories get unsettlingly close to reality:
    • This article, posted four years before the fact, is about the real Michael Jackson whom everyone loved in The '80s being found dead in his home. Interestingly, that came true in more ways than one — not only was MJ found dead in his home, but it was at that moment that people started thinking of him as the MJ everyone loved again.
    • Another Onion article dated January 17, 2001 featured the headline "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'". The article itself only goes downhill from there.
    "During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe drought of war that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level conflict in the next four years. ‘You better believe we’re going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration. … Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle stations. Otherwise, what is the point in even having a military?’"
    • Also, check the date on this one: Stunned Nation Mourns As French Stewart Survives Plane Crash, especially harsh as several celebrities actually did die in the attacks.
    • Maybe not as harsh as these other Onion examples, but this old Stat Shot is becoming less and less funny and more prescient now that we live in a world where the "Sexy Cookie Monster Costume" exists.
    • This Onion article isn't quite as funny in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
    • An article from The Onion in August 2011 about Joe Paterno ended with the sentiment that without Penn State, Joe Paterno would probably die. Paterno was fired as the head coach at Penn State in November 2011 due to the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal. Two months later, Paterno died.
    • In the wake of several mass shootings in America (including at a movie theater and at a Sikh temple), The Onion published an article entitled "Nation Celebrates Full Week Without Deadly Mass Shooting." The last line in the article is "At press time, federal authorities had issued a reminder to all Americans that a lot can happen in 24 hours, ...so let’s not get too excited yet." Less than 24 hours later, a gunman shot ten people in front of The Empire State Building and killed two of them.
    • This article, written as though it was from the fictitious point of view of Chris Brown, who was honestly wondering why anyone still supported him, mentioned Drake as a better substitute, as Drake had until then avoided scandal. Nowadays Drake’s name has been tarnished with grooming allegations.
  • This Overheard Everywhere quote, posted in December of 2007.
  • Phelous:
    • All of the jabs between Doug and Phelan in crossovers and such are not as funny now since the latter left Channel Awesome on less-than-friendly terms.
      • After hearing about some of the unpleasant things that have gone on behind the scenes leading up to Phelous' departure from Channel Awesome, as well as his general displeasure with To Boldly Flee, a lot of his Take Thats directed towards the film, The Nostalgia Critic, Demo Reel, Doug Walker and so on seem less like friendly jabs and a lot more pointed and acidic.
      • In the Child's Play 2 crossover with Critic, Critic shamelessly whores out Suburban Knights and when Phelous calls him out on it, he says “it's either that or another midroll” before grinning and cutting to commercial. Cute, but not so much after chatlogs were revealed of Rob telling Lupa off for “too many midrolls”.
      • In the aforementioned Child's Play 2 crossover, Phelous says he hasn't seen such fake special effects since Kickassia. Critic retorts that special effects in Suburban Knights were even worse... because Phelous did them. After Phelan revealed part of the reason he left Channel Awesome was because the site's management was accused him of "half-assing" the effects in the anniversary movies behind his back, it's rather uncomfortable to watch.
    • All of the crossovers starring Phelan, Allison and Brad Jones are more likely to become uncomfortable to watch since the latter two are no longer on speaking terms with each other after the aforementioned "Not So Awesome" document came to light. Brad went so far as to mock Allison's struggles with depression in a later Cinema Snob video, which probably makes it even worse.
    • During his review of the Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation episode "Turtles' Night Out", Phleous mocks a scene of Michelangelo condemning drug use. Mikey's VA, Kirby Morrow, died as a result of substance abuse. Phelan later included a dedication to Morrow in the credits for his review of "Unchain My Heart, Part 3."
  • Hollie Bennett of PlayStation Access left the channel in January 2019 to join the PR team for Cyberpunk 2077. This was when Cyberpunk was still the cool upcoming game that everyone was excited about, instead of the infamously janky mess that was released in December 2020.
  • The Pokémon fan trailer for a Darker and Edgier rendition of the franchise, Pokémon Apocalypse, became this when PETA released the Flash game "Pokémon Black and Blue" in protest of Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. The game features Pokémon battling abusive trainers, and has been met with largely negative reception from both fans and video game journalists.
  • There is an entire account on Twitter entitled “Poorly Aged Things” that is devoted to posting this kind of content.
  • While the first Potter Puppet Pals short, "Bothering Snape," came out a few months after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released, "Bothering Snape" can seem disturbing if you watch it after having read the scene in the book where James (Harry's father) and his friends bully Snape just for kicks (basically, the exams are done and Sirius is looking for some fun, and they decide to go mess with Snape who is just reading over his test). It makes Harry's "Let's go bother Snape" seem disturbingly like his father's bad side (although Harry in those shorts is generally more arrogant and more cruel than he usually is in the books).
  • After Heidi O'Ferrell divorced ProJared due to him allegedly cheating on her, Jared's rating for the Intec Interact in his "WORST CONSOLE EVER" video- a "broken marriage out of 10"- became used against Jared a lot.
  • In the third edition of "Things I Am not Allowed to Do at the Protectors of the Plot Continuum" was the line "I will not unleash macroviruses in HQ". Three guesses (and the first two don't count) what the League of Mary Sue Factories unleashed in Headquarters over a year later, with massive loss of life.
  • This happens frequently in regards to the Psychic Twins, who have a YouTube channel where they make various predictions. Whether or not you believe in it, many of their tragic predictions have corresponded to real events, such as bombings and the death of Christina Grimmie, meaning this trope is built in to their occasional "prediction roundup" moments.
  • Randy Rainbow: "Andy", Randy's love ballad to then-New York governor Andrew Cuomo (parodying "Sandy" from Grease), while still hilarious and catchy, can come off as a Horrible Judge of Character after a year later, as Cuomo was accused of downplaying COVID deaths and of sexual harassment by a former intern and ultimately pressured into resigning.
  • TheRealJims posted his "60 Second Simpsons" review of The Simpsons episode "Bart's Comet", which featured the song "Que Sera, Sera" by Doris Day on May 9, 2019, four days before she passed away at age 97, with TheRealJims posting in his "Extra Seconds" follow-up that the timing between his reviews and her death was shocking.
  • The subreddit r/AgedLikeMilk is dedicated to collecting such moments that aged poorly.
  • Retsupurae made fun of a series of old video game reviews, one of which included the reviewer's bizarre suggestion that Lara Croft from Tomb Raider should have a dramatic plotline where she gets breast cancer. Some years later, Angelina Jolie got a preventative double mastectomy for fear of breast cancer. The riff also has this unfortunate line:
    slowbeef: Y'know, that's really what Tomb Raider III needed: more double mastectomies.
  • In May 2017, Rhett & Link released "Does Music Make Food Taste Better?", guest starring Mike and Chester of Linkin Park. Chester committed suicide barely two months after the episode was posted, making his cheerful, goofy appearance here seem much more like the mask of a Stepford Smiler. Possibly the eeriest bit is this line, sung while R&L are eating ramen:
    I'm one noodle closer to...death.
  • An episode of Marc Mues' show "Rope Break" had him and Dillon commentating on a match with Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior, while Dillon makes some inflammatory comments towards the latter. It was released only four days before Warrior's death.
  • The Ryan George video "Nobody Cares About Game Show Hosts" features Alex Trebek mistaking contestants' responses on Jeopardy! as questions about his well-being, and then sobbing when he realizes nobody's actually checking up on him. A few months after the video came out, Trebek revealed he had Stage IV pancreatic cancer, and in his memoir, he described the psychological issues that came with his cancer treatment, including crying jags and suicidal ideation. Many more people were concerned for Trebek's well-being after hearing that. He died 18 months later.
  • SF Debris:
  • A SomethingAwful thread entitled "tim russert is the most handsome man on television" was posted on June 13th, 2008 as a joke topic. Barely three hours later the news broke that Tim Russert had passed away. Needless to say it surprised everyone, and it's become a minor meme that if someone dies, the topic will have a title similar to "[Person] is the most handsome man on television".
  • The Spoony Experiment:
    • Spoony's Twitter poems and declarations of love to his girlfriend Scarlett became harder to look at after they broke up in March 2011.
    • Spoony featured Randy Savage at the end of a video, promptly blew him up supposedly killing him. Randy Savage died from car accident a day later.
    • The first part of the 2012 Channel Awesome Anniversary To Boldly Flee so far made jokes about The Nostalgia Critic only calling the other reviewers to fire them, featured the line "The Spoony One must not return", and has an entire plotline about Spoony being possessed and initially mistaken for insane by the others. A few months after filming was done, Noah Antwiler was let go from the site over recent bad behavior, and shortly afterwards he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He seems to take it with humor, though, and he is making peace with his friends once more.
      • Creepily accidentally foreshadowed in the first episode of "The Black Hole of Board Games", where the Gatekeeper from the game Nightmare replies to him saying that everyone seems to love his stuff with "They won't soon", and generally lays into him. This ended up being utilized in future plots with other villains playing on his fears of being hated and alone.
    • During a late night chat on Lord Kat's livestream (circa September 2010), a conversation between Spoony, Sean Fausz, and Skitch was interrupted by a sudden THUD, after which Spoony's line went quiet.note  After about five minutes of silence, Skitch jokingly speculated that Spoony had "dropped dead from a heart attack"; Sean replied, "Oh, well. Miles will find him and give him a eulogy." A little over a month later, Spoony started having fainting spells and ended up making numerous trips to the hospital...because of a previously unknown heart condition. Ouch.
    • Also in Spoony's Deadly Premonition LP he gives the line "I think my heart's about to explode!"
      • And again way back in his Terror TRAX: Track of the Vampire audio CD review where Spoony offhandedly joked about having a heart condition.
    • And again involving Spoony: anything involving his now ex-girlfriend Scarlett. Poor guy has had a rough time of it...
      • Particularly awkward is the SGC 2010 Q&A Panel where he informs the crowd that "there would be no website without Scarlett", joking that he needs to keep her happy because "if she gets mad, everything's goin' down!" After the pair broke up, The Spoony Experiment nearly did go down: Noah fell into a deep depression, and announced that he wasn't in the frame of mind to produce any videos in the foreseeable future; there was no new content on the site for nearly three months, during which Noah contemplated leaving internet reviewing permanently.
    • In his review of the Make My Video games, Spoony jokes about bringing medication with him because the games are so bad, he's afraid of having an insanity attack. Numerous other reviews make jokes about having mental breakdowns or taking "crazy pills" (in fact, it's something of a Running Gag). As of June 2012, Noah's been diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder. Worse yet? After that he has been known to skip his meds for various reasons...
    • Related to the above, but back in the day, comments suggesting for Noah to get evaluated were a common sight. Especially on his particularly shouty videos, responses to his social media tirades or his manic behaviour at in-person events reminding people of their bipolar friends and family members. This was in contrast to many other internet critics' Mean Character, Nice Actor personas. People (even Spoony himself) used to dismiss them as "concern trolls" and people who were "missing the joke", but after Noah was diagnosed these comments took on a whole new light.
    • The first part of the 2012 Channel Awesome Anniversary To Boldly Flee made jokes about The Nostalgia Critic only calling the other reviewers to fire them, featured the line, "The Spoony One must not return", and has an entire plotline about Spoony being possessed and initially mistaken for insane by the others. A few months after filming wrapped (but before the special was released, so that everybody in the audience is aware of this), Noah Antwiler was suspended from the TGWTG over recent bad behavior, then left the site for good (of his own accord), and shortly afterwards was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He seems to take it with humor, though. It's also worth noting that they actually averted it in one case: originally, when the Nostalgia Critic called Film Brain, Film Brain would've said, "I promise not to do another crossover with Spoony!" This was meant to reference the negative reaction certain fans had to their crossover review of the live-action Tekken movie. However, given what had just happened with Spoony, this line was cut out of fear that it would be seen as a reference to the events.
      • To Boldly Flee is loaded with these given the numbers of falling outs and resignations that followed it's completion. Kinley Mochrie in particular gives a speech about how the members of TGWTG are a family and that internet video critics need to stick together; just a few months later, she was gone from the site.
    • Spoony used to use Suicide as Comedy. Then one of his fans committed suicide...
    • Narrowly averted in Spoony's review of The Barbarians. Spoony see had originally planned to do the review in his Ultimate Spoony character, except the real Ultimate Warrior died the day before Spoony was going to begin filming. The review treats the movie as a parting gift from Warrior and Spoony reviews it as himself.
  • In 2007, the Star Wars wiki declared that only the movies and the animated series were canon. Fans of the EU rejoiced that this was an April Fool's Joke. 7 years later, Lucasfilm, to guarantee a clean slate for their future films, made the same announcement—but this time, they weren't joking.
  • In Ten Little Roosters episode 6, Miles finds what appears to be a mocap video of what he calls "dot sex" (It's actually Adam being strangled and his futile fight to save himself). As he does, Miles walks away in shame and proclaims "You're a sick, sick man, Monty Oum." A month later, Monty would be sick... and pass away.
  • In the first episode of TotalBiscuit and Jesse Cox's Terraria LP, started in 2011, TotalBiscuit refers to the Wooden Hammer as being "worse than cancer". Three years later, TotalBiscuit would be diagnosed with colon cancer, which would eventually kill him in 2018.
  • For a time, The Tourettes Guy videos were considered a Harsher In Hindsight series after news about its star's death appeared in August of 2007. About two years later, it was then revealed that the Tourettes Guy was in prison the whole time, and a new video was released in late 2009 following his release from prison.
    • Also, the line "When I die and go to heaven and see God, I'm gonna say...... shit" became a lot more relevant after said death rumors.
  • The Try Guys: In light of the September 2022 revelation that Ned Fulmer was having a workplace romance with one of his employees, some of his moments can be harder to watch.
    • Ned's persona as the wholesome, Happily Married family man of the Try Guys can be harder to accept after knowing he cheated on his wife Ariel.
    • The Lie Detector Test videos sheds a different and negative light towards Ned's perception about marriage. Example being when Keith said that his marriage is more realistic compared to Ned's bragging about Ariel, and an even more awkward example was in the Buzzfeed video when Ned said marriages tend to be not as good as they get older. Ned even claims at one point that his marriage with Ariel was probably better than John's (the polygraphist) marriage. John was not amused.
    • Two more moments include Ned once saying that cheating in a relationship is a sign of internal problems not being addressed and outright calling relationships between employees illegal and repulsive.
  • Examples from TVTropes itself:
    • The page image and accompanying quote on this TV Tropes page, now that Leonard Nimoy is dead.
    • From Choke Holds, "This is why cops no longer employ 'The Sleeper Hold'. It kills." is harsher in light of the Eric Garner killing illustrating exactly why cops are no longer supposed to employ it.
  • Jeff Zanini's Twisted Toonz panels (in which voice actors read movie scripts as characters they voiced and celebrities that they can impersonate vocally, switching off after every scene) had, as a running joke, Jess Harnell do a Bill Cosby impersonation. You should know the drill by now. He later did the impersonation during a Ghostbusters read, but was a lot more negative in its purpose.
  • This tweet: "Kobe is going to end up dying in a helicopter crash". It was posted in 2012. Fast forward 8 years later, the tweeter had to apologize.
  • Some of Katya's quips and behaviors in episodes of UNHhhh prior to 2018 became harder to joke about after her psychotic breakdown and her temporarily quitting drag to go to rehab. Katya would later reveal that there are some episodes that she doesn't remember filming at all because of how drugged up she was, which puts a different light on her apparent Cloudcuckoolander tendencies at the time.
  • An Urban Dictionary definition about Jimmy Savile from 2007 states that he looks "a bit like a paedophile." This was well before Savile's death and the revelation that he was indeed a highly prolific child molester.
  • The infamous Pablo is one of the most well-known skits of the Vanoss crew's many sessions for being a joke that straight-up obliterates the line. For those who don't know, Craig "Mini Ladd" Thompson, back when he was part of the crew, made a video in 2014 where he was telling the others a story (with a bad accent) about Pablo, a Mexican Mario knock off who, in a surprise twist added at the end, was a pedophile. Things took a surprisingly dark turn, when, in June of 2020, Mini was accused by two people of sending them inappropriate messages while they were underage and he was in his twenties, to which Craig tweeted out admitting his behavior. This made the Pablo bit much harder to stomach, and it has not gone unnoticed; many fans have commented on the original Pablo video lampshading that the joke aged very poorly.
    • Similarly, this roast by Wildcat (who was mocking Minecraft-uploading YouTubers who were accused of sexually inappropriate behavior towards minors), became much harder to stomach after the above accusations.
  • This video by Videogamedunkey, the fake quote from JonTron ("Fuck you dunkey, I do not watch your videos because you are black") has become uncomfortable, considering JonTron's disasterous stream with Destiny in which he talked about how he believed black people committed more crime and sympathized with those who want preserve a white majority in the United States.
    • This also taints a great deal of JonTron's episodes, most especially "Food Games," which outright depicts Jon owning a slave named Grimbo.
  • Not a real-life occurrence, but Vinesauce Vinny managed to accidentally foreshadow an in-game tragedy of his own making when he played Minecraft. After building a snowman only to have it immediately die from being snowed on, he played it off by noting that having pets is "investing in sadness." Two of the most famous moments in the series would end up being the times he tried to adopt actual pets—Ziggy the cat and then the parrots John and Michael—only to have them get killed in similarly dumb but much less funny ways before he could get them home. The parrots were a double case because they were named after John Cleese and Michael Palin from the Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch about a dead parrot.
  • WatchMojo.com, a Canadian-Based web program, aired the Top 10 Infamous Mass Shootings in the U.S. on December 5, 2012 on YouTube, a week prior to the Sandy Hook Shooting in Newtown, CT. The company have recognized this and left a noticed explaining about the video and reminded viewers how unpredictable such actions can be. WatchMojo's top 10 stories of 2012 video was released on December 13, 2012.
  • The April 9, 2013 edition of What If? had as its topic "Am I right to be afraid of pressure cookers? What's the worst thing that can happen if you misuse a pressure cooker in an ordinary kitchen?" Barely six days later, somebody used a pair of pressure cookers filled with nails and ball bearings to bomb the Boston Marathon.
  • What the Fuck Is Wrong with You?:
    • Tara's stories about her Hilariously Abusive Childhood have become this ever since her father died.
    • In "A Shotgun Christmas", Tara made fun of Nash for getting worried about being bitten by a Brown Recluse Spider. Several years later, she was bitten by one and had to be hospitalized.
    • In "Karate for Beginners", Nash mentions he's somehow lost enough weight that he needs a belt to keep his pants up. Kind of funny in the context of mocking the "Butt-Crack Bandits". Terrifying when Nash's health issues (most likely the cause of his dramatic weight loss) come very close to killing him later that same year (see: Nightmare Fuel).
    • During the 12/10/12 show, they had a story where something bad happens to a child in Connecticut. There's a moment of realization for Tara that it happened in Connecticut (because she lives there) and Nash laughs at that. But for anyone watching when it was posted later, after a certain tragic event that happened in Connecticut... Nash's laugh might have seemed inappropriate. (The comments on Blip and TGWTG were quick to point this out.)
    • In "Red Bull Gives You Madness," there's a story about skeletons being stuffed into teddy bears. That's pretty bad on its own, but gets even worse if you're familiar with Five Nights at Freddy's, where the game's backstory implies that a murderer lured five children backstage at a Suck E. Cheese's, and stuffed their corpses into the animatronics.
    • In his crossover review of Justice League of America with Linkara, Nash remarks that there is no way one can screw up a concept as simple as the Justice League. This was meant to be a joke in regards to the TV movie's notoriously low quality, but now the team's gotten a theatrical movie...a movie with a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes.
    • Stick Boy's crush on Lupa was accidentally the start of the "Everybody loves Lupa" running gag, which Allison Pregler grew to hate so much she only agreed for it to be in To Boldly Flee on the condition that she could kill it off.
    • Everything about the ending of Trial of the Incredible Hulk where they nearly kill JewWario is this:
      • First, it's the last thing he's in before he leaves the site.
      • Then a year later he died (shortly after appearing in the follow up review having apparently been in a coma the whole time).
      • Then we find out he didn't leave the site, he was fired for sexually assaulting a fan.
      • Then fans did the math and realized the incident he was fired because of actually happened at that same con he filmed the cameo in.
  • A What Would Tyler Durden Do thread published in 2007 simply stated, "I predict Jett Travolta will die in the bath and be found by his caretaker at the end of 2008 due to Scientology. So sayeth the crystal ball."
  • Woot.com's deal of the day for April 4, 2009, was for a set of four solar-powered lights; the product description began "What if the end of the world was tomorrow? Well, it probably wouldn't matter, because there would be no one left to notice." Their product descriptions are usually odd snarky things like that... but later that very same day, North Korea launched a rocket over Japan, an action which many nations condemned as long-range missile testing and "provocative." Not quite The End of the World as We Know It, thank goodness, but at the time it was a little scary.
  • Charlie Brooker's old 2001 Zeppotron site Unnovations has proved eerily prescient (please note these were not serious in any way):

Unsorted Fan Videos/Memes:

  • This Anti-Humor article is unpleasant, especially since the current Pope has been (as of this writing) alive and Pope-ing for over half a decade.
  • Before Avengers: Endgame with its spoilers came out, a 2018 fan video had Tony Stark ending up in The Good Place world where Michael tells him he suffered an Undignified Death after Thanos did the first Snap that make everyone laugh. Michael remarks that Tony has a record of sacrificing himself for the greater good, so he's obviously in The Good Place. Tony figures out he's in the Bad Place and uses demon tortures to wind down from a lifetime of stress. Hilarious and awesome? Yes. It becomes a Tear Jerker when in Avengers: Endgame, Tony sacrifices his life to save everyone, human, alien and magical being alike. The YouTube comments don't help. You've earned your spot in The Good Place, Mr. Stark.
  • There was a meme around December 2019-January 2020 joking that various disease outbreaks in the 1720s, 1820s, and 1920s hinted at another outbreak coming soon. The COVID-19 Pandemic would arrive only a few months later.
  • For many years, a popular New Year's Eve meme read something like "When someone asks me what it will be like in (X amount of years from 2020) and I say "I dunno, I don't have 2020 vision"". At last, 2020 arrived...and it brought such sheer insanity — including Australia being on fire, followed by California and Colorado— that it's possible almost no one will be mentally unscathed from it.
  • Also, in December 2010, someone (whose name was never revealed) wrote on Twitter: "predictions for 2011... Twitter will be super-regulated #ladygaga". This may have been considered funny/highly speculative at the time, but not now that the 2011 Twitter gagging order row has happened, and it's definitely uncomfortable to read, particularly as this got quoted around a few football forums too.
  • On an automotive blog, someone wrote an article entitled "Fifty Shades of Grey" - which was a Take That! at some well-known automobile manufacturers, and the Chinese automobile industry. Now, though, with Fifty Shades of Grey out in novel form, the title of the article seems less funny than it originally was.
  • The photoset of Otters Who Look Like Benedict Cumumberbatch went viral in April 2012. August 28, 2012, the featured species was declared extinct, and every single repost of those photos became an inadvertent memorial to the Japanese River Otter.
  • On radio sites Digital Spy and elsewhere, people were speculating that Dave Berry would be the future breakfast show presenter on 95.8 Capital Radio London and that there would be 100% national Capital Radio. The first one came true, and a backlash occurred. It's safe to say people would rather have a presenter who was "in touch" with their audience, like Simon Nicks, aka Nicksy, Darren Spence, Wayne Tunnicliffe, Jacqui Blay or Rick Vaughn, not a celebrity who they can't relate to (and the fact Jacqui provides Ms. Fanservice for everyone too, helps).
  • Speculation about GMG Radio being taken over and Real Radio being rebranded as Heart and Smooth Radio rebranded to Gold is no longer comedy for people on media websites, especially now this headline has happened. One can only hope UTV takes over them, as Global Radio would have a monopoly on the UK radio market. Many jokes about Clear Channel/iHeartMedia are now Harsher in Hindsight themselves, well, to British people in the media anyway.
  • 2016 saw a large number of high profile celebrity deaths, prompting many memes like this one to be created halfway through. However just as many famous people died in the second half of the year.
  • Renegade Cut: In the October 2019 video "You Can't Rehabilitate George W. Bush", Leon discusses the media's attempts at whitewashing George W. Bush's administration in light of then-president Donald Trump's administration, arguing that Bush was worse than Trump, saying "Donald Trump is easily one of the worst presidents of all time, but he doesn't have as much blood on his hands as Bush... so far.". In 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic took hold of the United States, and Trump's administration handled it so poorly that over 400,000 Americans died by the time his tenure ended before he lost the 2020 presidential election.
  • A tweet by Phineas, posted on September 4, 2022, proposed a sequel to Titanic (1997), in which some millionaires exploring the wreckage of the ship crash their sub, drown and get eaten by crabs. Less than a year later, in June 2023, a submarine operated by OceanGate imploded while exploring the wreckage, killing all five people aboard.

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