Quotes / Harsher in Hindsight

Literature

"Yesterday's entry sentences me to a prison of remorse for the rest of my days. How perversely it reads, how flippant I was!"

—The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, Cloud Atlas

Live-Action TV

"You got trapped
You got broke
It was only meant to be a sort of joke
But the joke... isn't funny... anymore."

—"The Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" from Fraggle Rock, "Mokey's Funeral"

"Let us dive right in this week, with the 2016 election, or, as it's increasingly known, 'America's fucktastic Cirque de Dismay.'. The big news this week surrounded Donald Trump, a punchline that is quickly becoming a nightmare. Like if you said: 'take my wife, please', and then she was actually kidnapped by ISIS."

—John Oliver, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Manga

Angol Moa: Let's say your actions, uncle, are made into an anime TV series on Pokopen.
Keroro: Hmm... yes! We do have a lot of kiddie fans.
Angol Moa: If that were to happen, and the contents were too violent or inhumane, it wouldn't make a good impression, and might violate some broadcast regulations.
Keroro: Hmm... that is possible!
Angol Moa: And what if, by unfortunate coincidence, a similar incident were to occur around the same time it was broadcast on your show?
Keroro: I... I don't even want to think about it!

—Sgt. Frog, Encounter 75: An Invasion of Convenience?

Tabletop Games

The [previous paragraph about a US agency confiscating the files for the third Grimtooth book] was an amusing joke when we wrote it back in 1986. However, with the invasion of the Steve Jackson Games offices by the Secret Service this year, along with the confiscation of all copies of their planned GURPS Cyberpunk game book (under the claim that it was a 'handbook for computer crime'), suddenly the joke is less funny. It was just a joke. Honest. There was no third book of traps.

—Rick Loomis, forward to Grimtooth's Traps Fore

Web Original

Every year since Game of Thrones debuted in 2011, we’ve heard about how many Game of Thrones baby names there are, and every year, I think, “Boy, shouldn’t you wait for the show to end?” This is why, people. This is why.

— Vox review of Game of Thrones episode The Bells

"It got to a point where I didn't like it anymore." That statement, uttered by Avicii in Levan Tsikurishvili's documentary, refers to his stunning 2016 decision to retire from touring. But it takes on a haunting new dimension in the aftermath of his suicide two years later.

—Frank Scheck on Avicii: True Stories

It premiered in 2015 and has some...interesting parallels to the events of the past year? Tinfoil hat wearers might try to call this "predictive programming," but regular hat wearers would just call it an unfortunate coincidence.

— Drew Gooden discussing The Last Man on Earth in a 2021 video

"I was going to make some joke about how Urkel could beat us all up now — but he was recently arrested for domestic battery, so suddenly that doesn't seem funny any more."

— Cracked, 17 Images that Will Ruin your Childhood

If you enlightened viewers in the modern age of less blurry screenshots are seeing some eerie parallels between the Corrupted Blood incident and certain real life current events, you aren't alone. In fact, academics took an interest in the incident for what it might tell us about real-life pandemics, particularly the sociological effects. But others argued that it taking place in a video game with zero real-life consequences limited the usefulness of the data. After all, it's not like people in the real world would just casually blow off an official quarantine order when there’s honest to goodness life and death on the line. Dear me, no! And as for the people who'd get the infection and try to pass it to others deliberately, why that would require nothing less than a fundamental breakdown of education and governance. Surely people understand that there are no hard resets in Real Life? (Unless you count tactical nuclear strikes.) Yes, I suppose this episode is more of a "Let's all laugh at a humanity that never learns anything, tee hee hee..."

— Yahtzee, Zero Punctuation, ''World of Warcraft: The Corrupted Blood Incident"

Two jocks in letter jackets immediately decide to bully him as part of the ongoing Coat Wars, and Slater responds by pulling out a goddamn gun and firing blanks in their faces. In the next scene, one of the titular Heathers scoffs at the thought of J.D. getting any punishment worse than a brief suspension, and Veronica finds his antics both hilarious and kinda hot. And indeed, J.D. is allowed to return to school without any consequences, which makes it pretty easy for him to murder three students before attempting to blow the whole place up and finally committing suicide via bomb vest. You can probably see why this film didn't age well as a comedy, but aged fantastically as a grim portent of the dark future to come.

—Cracked on how the movie Heathers has not aged well past the Columbine Massacre.

Sonic: You should be in prison!
Sonichu: Yeah, I was in prison!
Sonic: How did you escape?
Sonichu: Uh, well, I didn't, someone bailed me out!
Sonic: WHAT!?
Sonichu: Yeah, they did it while I was making this—
Doobus Goobus: (normal voice) —CARTOON! I've— I-I-I don't know how to end this! (stutters) I had this planned, like, a week ago… [she's]-uh-[she's] out there! [She's] out in public, [she's] out of prison! WHAT DO I EVEN DO—!? (cartoon ends)

— Doobus Goobus does Sonichu only to learn that Chris-Chan was released from prison while he was making it

"So I'm about to review Die Hard on the Nintendo. But before I begin, I think I need to adress the... kinda disturbing, maybe offensive nature of the... front cover. (Beat) What does this remind you of?!" (shows the front cover, depicting the burning top of the Nakatomi Plaza with the darkened middle stripe being even darker than on the film front cover, giving a even bigger resemblance of two equally tall buildings burning at the same time)

— The Angry Video Game Nerd - Episode 28

"Sometimes Harvey Weinstein will let me use the Miramax Jet, if I'm opening a supermarket for him... That one didn't age quite so well."

— Jontron, reading quotes from Gwyneth Paltrow, Gwyneth Paltrow's "Goop"

Screenwriter Guy: So in the next movie they want to storm the Capitol!
Producer Guy: Oh, storming the Capitol is tight!
Screenwriter Guy: Yeahyeahyeah!
(beat)
Producer Guy: ...That's gonna age well, right?
Screenwriter Guy: What is?
Producer Guy: That sentence I just said. That's gonna age well? That's gonna age okay?
Screenwriter Guy: Why wouldn't that age well?
Producer Guy: I don't know, I just got this weird feel— It's probably nothing.

— Screen Rant Pitch Meetings: The Hunger Games Sequels

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