You’ve seen the memes. A grainy screenshot of Homer Simpson standing in front of a whiteboard covered in complex math, or a 1990s episode where a background character is wearing a watch that looks suspiciously like an Apple Watch. It feels like every time something major happens in the news—a global pandemic, a billionaire buying a social media platform, or a specific Super Bowl score—everyone immediately asks: "Wait, did The Simpsons do it again?"
Honestly, the "prophecy" of the show has become a modern legend. But there aren't any time travelers in the writers' room. There’s no crystal ball sitting on Matt Groening’s desk. When we look at who made the simpsons predictions, the answer is actually much more interesting than a conspiracy theory. It's a mix of Ivy League nerds, a massive volume of episodes, and a very cynical understanding of how human history repeats itself.
The Math Geeks Behind the Scenes
Most people think of comedy writers as class clowns who just want to make fart jokes. For The Simpsons, that couldn't be further from the truth. In the early years, and continuing today, the writers' room was packed with people who had degrees in physics, computer science, and high-level mathematics.
Al Jean, the long-time showrunner, studied mathematics at Harvard, entering the university at just 16 years old. David X. Cohen, who later developed Futurama, has a degree in physics from Harvard and a master's in computer science from UC Berkeley. Jeff Westbrook was a former researcher at AT&T Bell Labs and a computer science professor.
When you have people this smart writing jokes, they don't just guess; they extrapolate.
Take the "Higgs Boson" prediction. In the 1998 episode The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace, Homer becomes an inventor and writes an equation on a chalkboard. It turns out that equation actually predicts the mass of the Higgs Boson particle—years before CERN discovered it. This wasn't magic. It was a writer named David X. Cohen reaching out to a friend who was a physicist to find a "real" looking equation that would make sense in a scientific context. They were essentially looking at the leading theories of the time and putting them into the script.
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Bill Oakley and the World Trade Center "9/11" Image
One of the most famous and eerie coincidences involves a New York City guidebook in the 1997 episode The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson. The cover shows the price of the bus fare—$9—right next to the Twin Towers, which creates the visual of "9/11."
Bill Oakley, who was an executive producer and writer at the time, has been very open about how this happened. They weren't trying to send a message. They needed a cheap bus fare for the joke, and 9 dollars sounded comically low. The artist who designed the prop put the towers in the background because they were the most iconic part of the skyline.
"I will grant that it’s eerie," Oakley told the New York Observer. But he’s adamant that it was strictly a coincidence born from the sheer amount of content they produce.
How the Writers Actually "Predict" the Future
If you throw enough darts at a board, you’re going to hit a bullseye eventually. The Simpsons has over 750 episodes. If each episode has 50 jokes about the future or society, that’s tens of thousands of "shots" taken at the target.
Showrunner Matt Selman has a pretty blunt take on why the show seems so prophetic. He basically says that if you study history and math, it’s literally impossible not to predict things. Humans are creatures of habit. We make the same mistakes over and over. If the writers joke about the most "outrageous possible outcome" of a current event, and then society actually follows that path, it looks like a prediction.
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The writers also do an incredible amount of research. When they "predicted" Disney buying Fox, it wasn't a wild guess. In the late 90s, media consolidation was already a huge topic of conversation in the industry. The writers were just taking a trend that was already happening and following it to its logical, absurd conclusion.
The Trump Presidency
This is the big one. In the 2000 episode Bart to the Future, Lisa becomes President and mentions inheriting "quite a budget crunch from President Trump."
Dan Greaney, the writer of that episode, has explained that they were looking for a name that sounded like a "last stop before hitting rock bottom" for the country. At the time, Donald Trump was already teasing the idea of running for president. It was a joke based on the celebrity-obsessed culture of the time. It wasn't that the writers knew what would happen in 2016; it’s that they recognized a specific type of American figure and projected them into the future.
The Hall of Fame: Writers Linked to Predictions
While the "predictions" are usually a group effort from the writers' room, certain names pop up more than others when we look at who made the simpsons predictions.
- Al Jean: As the primary showrunner for decades, he oversees the "brain trust" that vets these ideas. He’s the one who often has to go on the record to debunk the more insane conspiracy theories.
- Matt Selman: The current showrunner who emphasizes the "math and history" approach to satire.
- David X. Cohen: Responsible for some of the most scientifically accurate "future" jokes, especially those involving technology and physics.
- Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein: Showrunners during the mid-90s "Golden Era" who oversaw episodes like the NYC trip and the "Osaka Flu" (which people often wrongly link to COVID-19).
- Carolyn Omine: A long-time writer who has noted that for every one prediction that comes true, there are hundreds of "failed" predictions that people just forget about.
Why We Want to Believe It’s Magic
There’s a psychological reason why these "predictions" go viral. Humans love patterns. We want the world to feel like there's some kind of plan or hidden knowledge behind it. It’s much more comforting to think a bunch of geniuses in a room in California have the "key" to the future than to admit the world is just chaotic and weird.
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Matt Selman has joked that people want it to be "witch and wizard-type stuff." They want to imagine the writers sitting around a crystal ball, covered in sweat, chanting until they see the future. The reality—a bunch of middle-aged guys in a drab office drinking too much coffee and arguing over whether a joke is funny—is much less glamorous.
Misconceptions and the "Fake" Predictions
It's worth noting that a huge chunk of the "predictions" you see on TikTok or Instagram are fake.
People will take a screenshot of a recent episode and claim it’s from 1994. Or they’ll literally Photoshop a character into a scene. For instance, there was a viral image of the show "predicting" the death of Queen Elizabeth II with a specific date on a tombstone. That never happened. The writers never put that date in the show.
The real writers, like Bill Oakley, find this trend "gross" and "depressing." They take pride in their work as satirists, and seeing their art twisted into weird conspiracy theories for clicks is frustrating for the people who actually sit in that room for 60 hours a week.
Actionable Insights: How to Spot a Real Prediction
If you want to be a savvy consumer of Simpsons trivia, keep these things in mind:
- Check the Episode Date: Don't trust a meme. Look up the episode on IMDb or Disney+. If the "prediction" is from an episode that aired after the event happened, it’s not a prediction; it’s just a reference.
- Look for the Logic: Ask yourself: "Was this trend already starting when the episode aired?" Most of the time, the answer is yes.
- Remember the Misses: For every "win," there are episodes where they predicted things that never happened (like the legalization of gambling in every state by the year 2000).
- Follow the Writers: If you're genuinely curious about the process, follow people like Bill Oakley or Josh Weinstein on social media. They often share the actual "behind the scenes" stories of how these jokes came to be.
The legacy of who made the simpsons predictions isn't about psychic powers. It's a testament to the power of a well-educated, cynical, and highly observant group of writers who have been watching the world very closely for nearly 40 years. They aren't telling us what's going to happen; they're telling us who we are, and we just keep proving them right.