The Onion seems to have a depressing ability to predict the future:
- "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'"
. Written days before George W. Bush's inauguration, the article has Bush promising to start at least one major war and cause a recession during his presidency. - "Pope Forgives Molested Children". Compare some of the phrases in the article to what real-life priests actuallysaid.
- "Millions Of Americans Wearing Floyd Landis-Inspired Bracelets". At the time, this was a parody of Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG bracelets making fun of then-Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, who was almost immediately found guilty of doping. However, a few years later, Armstrong himself would admit to doping during each one of his Tour de France wins as well. The Onion Store now sells yellow plastic bracelets with "CHEAT TO WIN" on them.
- "Kim Jong-Un Privately Doubting He's Crazy Enough to Run North Korea". With recent events and threats coming from the top of the Korean peninsula, any doubts people might have had about Kim Jong-un may have been erased...
- "I've Got You Dumb Motherfuckers Eating Right Out of My Hand" is basically Pixar CEO John Lasseter bragging that his movies bring in a ton of money and are pretty much critically beloved. Later that year, Cars 2 came out and was the first movie in the Pixar library to get critically savaged. Its follow-ups, Brave and Monsters University, were better-received, but didn't receive anywhere near the acclaim of their earlier work. Pixar's reputation only really started to recover with the releases of Inside Out and Coco, and the article became downright prophetic in light of Lasseter's sexual harassment allegations revealed during the #MeToo movement of 2017.
- "New Liver Complains of Difficulty Working With Lou Reed". Lou Reed died of complications of his liver transplant.
- "Wealthy Teen Nearly Experiences Consequence" is about an article where a wealthy teen driving intoxicated gets into a wreck when his car collides with a minivan carrying a family of four. The "affluenza" story around Ethan Couch may change your perspective.
- "Chris Farley Has Hilarious Cardiac Arrest", published on November 1997, even calls Farley "the next Belushi". Two months later, Chris Farley died of a drug overdose at the age of 33, just like John Belushi.
- "College Basketball Star Heroically Overcomes Tragic Rape He Committed", after the Brock Turner case. Turner received a light sentence largely because he was a star swimmer for Stanford University. Fortunately, USA Swimming has banned Turner for life.
- "Justin Bieber Found To Be Cleverly Disguised 51-Year-Old Pedophile", recorded in 2010, portrayed Justin Bieber as exploiting his Teen Idol status to molest his adolescent female fans. In 2017, Austin Jones, another YouTube singing sensation with a fanbase composed primarily of tween and teen girls, was found to be exploiting his stardom to get underage fans to make sexually explicit videos for him.
- "Pop Star's Single, 'Booty Wave', Most Likely Civilization's Downfall", a parody of the vapid, raunchy pop music of 2011, has one line that becomes a lot more disturbing nowadays. At one point, the female co-host, who cannot stand the pop star K'ronikka and is barely concealing her contempt, remarks to her that "there's no light in your eyes". K'ronikka is a thinly-veiled parody of Kesha, who it turned out was being sexually exploited by her producer, Dr. Luke, eventually driving her to a bout with bulimia and a long battle to get out of her contract that, together, derailed her career for half a decade. In other words, her party-hard image was masking a great deal of sadness and heartbreak.
- "Ken Jennings Mistaken For Subway's Jared Again". Subway broke ties with Jared Fogle after the latter was outed as a pedophile and jailed in 2015.
- "Today Now! Host Undergoes Horrifically Painful Surgery Live On Air" sees Jim Haggerty needing to undergo a procedure to get rid of his kidney stones. Three years after the video was released, the actor who played him ended up getting a kidney stone himself.
- "18-Year-Old Fighting In Afghanistan Has 9/11 Explained To Him By Older Soldier" is already harsh enough by itself, but it became even more so after Time published an article featuring a soldier who hadn't even been born yet when the terrorist attacks occurred. He and a lot of other young soldiers are much like McCombs in how they're fighting a war that sparked from an event that they're too young to remember.
- From their Youtube: "Hostages Trapped Inside Walmart Insisting They Never Shop At Walmart" Considering the August 3rd 2019 El Paso Wal-Mart Shooting which had 23 people injured and 23 dead. It can be unsettling
- "U.S. Quietly Slips Out Of Afghanistan In Dead Of Night" which came out in 2011, stated that US troops left Afghanistan in the middle of the night. 10 years later, not only the pull out happened for real in 2021, it was noted to have happened in the middle of the night in local time as well.
- "This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won't." Published in 2003 on the eve of the Iraq War, today it barely even reads as satire, just an accurate prediction of what that war would unleash.
- "Critically Acclaimed 'Ted Lasso' Episode Just Stock Photos Of People Hugging Each Other". Published early during Season 2 of the hit series Ted Lasso as a way to mock the show for being too saccharine and lacking conflict. Within a few episodes of the article's publication, the show took a hard turn into drama, with storylines revolving around mental health, abusive parents, death, and more. To say the article aged badly is an understatement.
- The "Ugly Girl Killed" article from 1997 that was written as an subversion to the Missing White Woman Syndrome and also highlights Beauty Equals Goodnessnote is reminiscent with the disproportionate coverage of the abductions/murders of schoolgirls Hannah Williams, Danielle Jones and Milly Dowler. This was due to the former girl being a habitual runaway and coming from a lower-class, single mom home versus the latter girls having more traditional and comfortable upbringings.
- "Beyonce Unhurt After Stray Bullet Hits Passerby" shows the media being more focused on the bruise the celebrity got from the titular passerby who fell on her after taking a bullet meant for her, a crack at how celebrities take up attention that they don't deserve. The passerby was even portrayed by a rectangle instead of a human model. In early 2021, when Lady Gaga's dogs were taken while their walker is shot, the former got more coverage.
- "Mother Teresa Sent to Hell in Wacky Afterlife Mixup" becomes a lot harsher after some of Teresa's poor treatment of the people she allegedly "helped" came to light, as if her destination wasn't an accident after all.
- The "Reporter Goes Undercover In Chinatown By Wearing Silk Robe", which shows a Refuge in Audacity segment of a White reporter mocking bigotry and other cultural appropriations in the media, became downright uncomfortable five years later when Fox News reporter Jesse Watters embarked on a similar news segment which included the exact things The Onion had lampshaded.
- "Celebrities Explain How They Are Helping Ukraine"'s first joke is Bruce Willis saying he spends an hour everyday trying to find Ukraine on a globe. Mere days after the article was published, his family revealed that he had aphasia (a language-processing disorder where one of the symptoms includes difficulty remembering the names of people and places, among other things). It only got worse when, about a year later, he was ultimately diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.
