Fact check: Viral images of 'The Simpsons' unrelated to 2022 monkeypox outbreak

Dezimey Kum, USA TODAY
·3 min read

The claim: 'The Simpsons' predicted monkeypox outbreak

The rise of monkeypox cases has sparked another iteration of a long-running social media trope: "The Simpsons" predicting the future.

An Aug. 4 Facebook post features images of character Homer Simpson with what appears to be a rash. In the top-left corner, the same character can be seen laying with a monkey wearing a diaper.

"This is just crazy but they absolutely never Miss #monkeypox #virus #crazy," reads the caption. The post accumulated over 1,000 shares and 400 reactions within five days.

Similar versions of the claim have gained hundreds of interactions on Facebook and Twitter.

But the meme includes screenshots of two different episodes that are unrelated to monkeypox.

Fact check: Altered image falsely attributes erroneous monkeypox claims to BBC, WHO and CDC

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook users who shared the claim for comment.

Episodes do not indicate monkeypox

The images of Homer Simpson broken out in rashes comes from Episode 3 of Season 17, “Milhouse of Sand and Fog," which aired on Sept. 25, 2005. In the episode, Homer contracts chickenpox from his daughter Maggie.

The image of Homer next to a monkey in the posts is from Episode 21 of Season 9, “Girly Edition." The episode, which aired on April 19, 1998, does not address monkeypox. Homer chooses to adopt Mojo, a helper monkey.

Fact check: Monkeypox is not a side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine, experts say

First discovered in 1970, monkeypox mainly spread within central and west Africa until 2022, according to the World Health Organization. The CDC reported over 11,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the U.S. as of Aug. 12.

No predictions on show

Throughout the years, fans of "The Simpsons" have claimed the show predicts world events. However, the show's creators have noted the obvious: they have no prior knowledge of these events.

“I would say in general when people say 'The Simpsons' has predicted something, it is just that we were satirizing real-life events from years before, and because history keeps repeating, it just seems like we were predicting things," writer and producer Bill Oakley said in a 2020 Reuters interview.

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USA TODAY has previously debunked claims that "The Simpsons" made predictions related to Vice President Kamala Harris's wardrobe, the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the Astroworld Festival deaths.

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim The Simpsons predicted the monkeypox outbreak. The creators of the series did not predict the spread of monkeypox in 2022 in the USA. The two images are from different episodes and do not depict monkeypox.

Our fact-checking sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: No, 'The Simpsons' did not predict the monkeypox outbreak

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