10 Ways The Simpsons Impact to the Real World

VIVA – The Simpsons still attracts attention from all walks of life from the past until now. The Simpsons may be known as the most influential TV and animation show. There are so many incidents and jokes that have a significant impact on real life.

1. Help Repair iPhone Keyboard

Before the iPhone was around, all mobile devices used physical keyboards as multi-touch devices, or virtual keyboards became a complete failure. The Apple Newton was an early attempt at a device without a physical keyboard and it was terrible.

In a 1994 episode of The Simpsons, a bluffing Dolph picks up a memo at Newton for Kearney that should remind them to beat up Martin. Instead, it records it as "eating Martha."

This very simple joke inspired the iPhone design team. They apparently share "eat Martha" jokes around the office all the time while they're developing a new keyboard. They worked on the idea until they eliminated the potential "eat Martha" problem and changed mobile typing forever.

2. Promoted Acceptance of eSports

Esports has become a huge industry that generates billions. eSports was once the subject of ridicule by people because of the name. Over time, the acceptance of the name eSports began to grow, it was because of 'The Simpsons'.

In 2019, The Simpsons aired an episode in which Bart played a professional game. Called a cultural tipping point, the game was created with the help of Riot Games, the company behind League of Legends, and Team Liquid from eSports.

3. Sets the Groundwork for Modern Adult Animation

Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and American Dad credits The Simpsons with essentially creating an entire genre of modern adult animation.

Basically, The Simpsons showed, for the first time since The Flintstones in the 1960s, that cartoons can exist that aren't necessarily just for kids. It can cover adult subjects, even dark ones, in a way that can keep an adult audience interested and entertained.

Over the years, The Simpsons has touched on issues of faith from a variety of perspectives. Christianity is well represented, but there are also characters who are Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and many more.

The Simpsons did poke fun at religion and researchers even coined the term "Ned Flanders Effect" to describe the tendency of secular people to avoid potentially religious partners in romantic situations because of their beliefs.

English professor Richard Pioreck has used Simpsons references for years in his lectures on a variety of subjects. One course is actually an online literature course based entirely on a selection from shows ranging from Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven to Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

An English professor from Xavier University in Chicago actually co-authored a book called The Simpsons in the Classroom: Embiggening the Learning Experience with the Wisdom of Springfield that focuses on using performance as a teaching aid.

Other schools have used the Simpsons as a starting point to teach topics such as economics, philosophy, political science, and sociology.

The word "embiggen" seems to have existed in the 19th century as a term meaning "to give courage" but it's not really a word anyone used.

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 and good numbers will understand how "cromulent" works in a sentence. Even the word "meh", although not coined by The Simpsons, was popularized as what is essentially the equivalent of a shrug.

Other terms like "yoink," "impossible" and the ever-useful "craptacular" were coined on the show or given new life there.

The Simpsons has long tried to balance ridicule, one of which is in its treatment of gay characters. So visible are the gay characters and themes on the show that a German writer wrote an entire book about it in which he studied 70 gay characters and 490 scenes throughout the show's history.

As he points out, The Simpsons was the first show to dedicate an entire episode to the subject of gay marriage in 2005.

Erwin In het Panhuis as writer even praised the show for helping gay people out thanks to the consistent and positive portrayal of gay characters and homosexuality in general.

Apu's character caused some serious controversy in recent years that culminated with voice actor Hank Azaria quitting his role.

This set off a storm of other voice actors, also giving up their character roles for the same reason. Azaria, as well as actors such as Jenny Slate from Big Mouth and Mike Henry from Family Guy, are white actors who voice minority characters.

They all voluntarily gave up their roles after some public backlash about racial inequality in voice roles came to light and the result was actors of color who were actually hired for multiple roles.

There are a number of jokes made by 'The Simpson' that end up happening in real life. Like predicting Disney would buy Fox 19 years before that happened. Also, the tiger attack on Roy Horn from Siegfried and Roy. Richard Branson goes into space.

Gold medal match at the Olympics. The mass of the Higgs-Boson particle was a decade before science even discovered it (not exactly, mind you, but close enough). Even in the three-eyed fish in the waters near the nuclear plant and many other predictions.

The biggest claim to changing the world of The Simpsons can be made in the form of Alex Bencze. Bencze was 8 years old in 1992 when one of the most famous episodes of The Simpsons aired. The 17th episode of the third season of "Homer at the Bat" featured cameos from many professional baseball players and one of the best songs in the show's history.

At the beginning of the episode, Homer nearly chokes on a donut because everyone else is ignoring him. Lenny then appears to be showing a poster showing the Heimlich maneuver, but the funny thing is he's focused on a piece of paper to register for softball. Homer corrects himself and the episode continues.

In real life, Bencze was with his brother when he choked on an orange. His 10-year-old brother Chris remembers the poster from the episode and shows Heimlich to Alex, saving his life. That simple joke actually saved one life.

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Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and American Dad credits The Simpsons with essentially creating an entire genre of modern adult animation.