Can any animated show claim greater influence than «The Simpsons» This may be the most influential era of television, animated or otherwise, to date. Whether you love or hate the "new" Simpsons, you can't deny that the show has been a source of comedy for over 30 years. But beyond the silly jokes, the Simpson family has found ways to influence the real world, sometimes in more shocking ways than you might think.
10. This helped fix my iPhone keyboard
These days, the world is awash with typos, in no small part due to the fact that we're all typing on tiny keyboards with our fat, stubby fingers. But a few years ago, it was even more difficult to navigate physical keyboards that required pressing individual keys instead of the relative ease of the multi-touch keyboard we have today. And it seems we should thank for this The Simpsons .
Before the iPhone, all mobile devices used physical keyboards because multitouch devices and virtual keyboards had failed miserably. People expected the iPhone to do the same. Why? The Apple Newton. It was the first attempt at a device without a physical keyboard, and the typing experience was terrible. In a 1994 episode of The Simpsons, bully Dolph takes a note. on his Newton« for Kearney, who is supposed to remind them to beat up Martin. Instead, he writes it down as "eat Martha." As a result, Kearney throws Newton at Martin.
This very simple joke inspired the iPhone development team. Apparently they are all the time shared the joke "eat Martha"« in the office , while we were developing a new keyboard. They worked on this idea until they eliminated the potential "eating Martha" problem and changed mobile printing forever.
9. It contributed to the acceptance of eSports
We've already talked about how esports has become a major industry. with a turnover of billions of dollars . Despite this, mass recognition hasn't come easy. To this day, there are still people who will scoff at the "sports" part of the name and be very surprised and embarrassed by how much money can be made. But recognition is growing, and this has been largely facilitated by «The Simpsons» .
In 2019, The Simpsons aired an episode in which Bart is engaged in professional games . Called cultural turning point , the game was created with the help of Riot Games, the company behind League of Legends , as well as the eSports team Team Liquid.
8. He laid the foundation for modern adult animation.
Pop culture often acts as a kind of ouroboros, devouring itself over and over again. Movies and TV shows constantly reference each other, and writers often include nods and homages to the works that inspired them. Over the past 30 years, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything in comedy, especially animated comedy, that hasn't been influenced by The Simpsons. .
Seth MacFarlane, creator «Family Guy» и «American Dad» , believes that «The Simpsons» essentially created the entire genre of modern adult animation. He called the show "« completely original »" and his show, along with other animation titans such as «South Park, Beavis and Butt-Head, King of the Hill, Futurama» и «Bob's Burgers» , everyone saw theirs success associated with a path laid out «The Simpsons» . And this doesn't mean that the show was copied. The Simpsons or, in the case of something like Rick and Morty , at all were similar to The Simpsons . But the foundation laid The Simpsons with irreverence, intelligence, and heart, it might have allowed any of those other shows to find their own niche.
In essence, «The Simpsons» for the first time since "« The Flintstones» The 1960s showed that there could be a cartoon that didn't have to be exclusively for children. It could tackle mature themes, even dark ones, in a way that would engage and entertain an adult audience. This truly hadn't existed before. «The Simpsons» , and if it weren't for them, who knows if any of today's popular animated shows would ever have been created?
7. The show embodies spirituality
If you feel spiritually empty, there are several ways to become more familiar with this part of your life. You can always read about any faith that interests you or even talk to clergy or other spiritual leaders. And if all else fails, you can focus on «The Simpsons, who are credited with spreading spiritual enlightenment by some rather high-ranking sources, including the Vatican itself.
Over the years «The Simpsons» addressed questions of faith from a variety of perspectives. Christianity was well represented, but there were also Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and other characters.
On the one side, «The Simpsons» They actually ridicule religion, and researchers even coined the term "« The Ned Flanders Effect »" to explain the tendency of secular people to avoid potentially religious partners in romantic situations because of their beliefs. On the other hand, The Vatican praised it back in 2009 the show's embrace of religious themes. As the newspaper noted, "«Homer finds his final refuge in God »" and while he is by no means a perfect man or disciple of his faith, that is part of the meaning.
6. The show changed education and the way students learn
Teachers are always looking for ways to engage students and help them learn better. Sometimes that means turning to pop culture, and who better to do that than The Simpsons?
English professor Richard Piorek has been using Simpsons references in his college courses for years, covering a variety of subjects. One course was actually online literature course , based entirely on excerpts from the show, ranging from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" to Dickens's "A Christmas Carol." An English professor at Xavier University in Chicago actually co-wrote a book called "« The Simpsons in the Classroom: Embedding Learning Experiences with the Wisdom of Springfield, which The show's primary focus was on using it as a teaching tool. Other schools used The Simpsons as a starting point for teaching topics as diverse as economy , philosophy , political science и sociology .
This doesn't mean everyone enjoys using Simpsons references in their classes. In 2010, more than 400 people signed a petition with demanding that a British school remove a show from a media module taught to students that focused on one episode and an introduction as a way to showcase media language, satire and parody.
5. The show led to language changes
A surprising number of people are familiar with the word "« embiggens »" This will get you almost half a million views on Google, which is not bad for a word that The Simpsons came up with back in 1996 . The word, meaning "to do more," was part of the Springfield city motto: "A noble spirit strengthens the smallest man." To be fair, the word "embiggen" seems to have already existed in the 19th century as a term meaning "to encourage," but no one actually used it.
Embiggen isn't the only lexical contribution the show can claim, and even if not every utterance makes it into the dictionary, they're still an important part of our culture. Everyone knows what "d'oh!" means when they hear it, and many will understand how "cromulent" works in a sentence. Even the word "« fur »", although not invented The Simpsons , was popularized as the verbal equivalent of a shrug.
Other terms such as "yoink," "impossible," and the always useful "craptacular" were either were invented in the series, or received there is a new life there.
4. He is credited with helping gays come out
«The Simpsons has long struggled to balance the mockery we'll soon see with acceptance. It hits harder than it hits hard, and over the years, it's done a lot to showcase diversity in many forms. One of them was its treatment of gay characters.
The gay characters and themes in the series are so prominent that a German author wrote an entire book about it, in which he explored 70 gay characters and 490 scenes from the show's history. As he noted, "The Simpsons" was the first series to dedicate an entire episode to the topic of same-sex marriage back in 2005.
The author, Erwin in Het Panhuis, even believes that the series helped gays. open up thanks to its consistent and positive portrayal of gay characters and homosexuality in general.
3. This has led to an unintentional increase in diversity in animation
The character of Apu has generated considerable controversy in recent years, culminating in voice actor Hank Azaria stepping down from the role (though not from the show, where he also voices many other characters). This caused a storm other voice actors, who also turned down their roles for the same reason. Azaria, along with actors like Jenny Slate from Big Mouth and Mike Henry from Family Guy, were white actors voicing minority characters. All of them voluntarily resigned their roles after some public backlash against racial inequality in voice roles became public, leading to the hiring of real actors of color for many of the roles.
Much of this change was due to the comedian Hari Kondabolu , whose documentary «The Trouble with Apu» was about how the portrayal of Apu affected him as a real Indian child growing up into an adult with a character and stereotypes that followed him for nearly 30 years.
2. He made countless real predictions
In recent years, the Simpsons' main claim to fame has been their seemingly supernatural ability to predict world events. In the end , they joked about it early on President Donald Trump back in 2000. And for several years, there was a cottage industry of websites providing us with lists of everything The Simpsons predicted, some more unreliable than others.
There were a staggering number of jokes that later reflected real-life events. For example, he predicted, that Disney will buy Fox 19 years before it happened. Also tiger attack on Roy Horn Siegfried and Roy. Richard Branson goes into space . Match for the gold medal at the Olympic Games. Mass Higgs boson particles ten years before science even discovered it (not quite, mind you, but pretty close). Even on three-eyed fish in the waters near the nuclear power plant.
Was many other predictions , Many of them were simple, not even considered coincidences, while others were a little more eerie. It's certainly a matter of debate whether any of this means anything, or whether life is so absurd that cartoonists can predict it quite accurately from time to time.
1. One episode saved a life
The biggest claim to change the world, which The Simpsons can do, takes the form of Alex Benche. Benche was 8 years old in 1992, when one of the most famous Simpsons episodes aired. In the 17th episode of the third season, "« Homer at the Bat »"there were cameos from numerous professional baseball players and one of the best songs in the history of the show.
At the beginning of the episode, Homer nearly chokes to death on a donut as everyone ignores him. Then, Lenny appears to point to a poster displaying Heimlich maneuver, But the climax is when he focuses on the sheet to sign up for softball. Homer corrects himself, and the episode moves on.
In real life, Benche was with his brother when he choked on an orange. His 10-year-old brother, Chris, remembered the poster from the episode and performed the Heimlich maneuver on Alex, saving his life. This simple joke actually saved his life. That the same thing happened again in England in 2007 when a child choked on a sandwich.