The "Facebook Acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp" (Episode: "The Fool Monty", 2010)

The Simpsons has earned quite the reputation for seemingly predicting the future. It’s actually a bit of a meme at this point, with fans pointing out how many things in the real world appear to have been "predicted" by the show, sometimes years in advance. While some of these predictions are purely coincidental or the result of broad satire, others do seem oddly prescient.

The "Facebook Acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp" (Episode: "The Fool Monty", 2010)

• What happened: In this episode, there’s a running gag about tech companies merging and acquiring one another.
• Reality: In 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion, followed by the acquisition of WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014. These deals played a major role in Facebook (now Meta) becoming a dominant social media conglomerate.