Does life imitate art more than art imitates life? This question is still being asked and has recently become a part of pop culture due to all the conspiracies spreading over social media. There is no right answer to this question but it is something very interesting to think about.  

Life imitating art is a real world event inspired by some sort of work of art. I’m sure you’ve all heard the conspiracy theories, but a prime example of this would be the TV shows that have “predicted” the future.

Art imitating life is a work of art inspired by real world events. This is something that happens very often in hollywood. An example of this would be any movie, book, art piece, etc. that’s based on a true story.

There are many examples to show for art imitating life:

Apollo 13. In 1995 a movie based on the apollo 13 lunar mission was released telling the story of the astronauts that experienced the event.

October Sky. A movie based on Homer Hickam’s experiences and how he reached his goal of becoming an engineer for NASA.

The Wolf of Wall Street. A movie based on stockbroker, Jordan Belfort, who made millions through his investment company. He pleaded guilty to many crimes relating to stock market manipulation.

Of course we would assume that art imitating life is something that happens more often, but what if life imitates art more often than we think.

Oscar Wilde, a poet and playwright, is famous for striking up this question. He believed that life and nature is something that isn’t really there, but artist are taught to see more than that and help other people see that too through their art.

Some artists don’t even mean to do what they do. It’s just something that comes to them naturally and don’t even expect it to happen in real life.

It’s recently become very popular to spot these strange coincidences in pop culture. Everyone is creating their own theories as to why all of this happening and trying to connect it to something bigger. People want to predict what happens next based on someone art.  

A few examples of this internet phenomenon are:

The real life Walter White. In 2008 the show Breaking Bad gained a lot of viewers and had a very large following. The show followed a man named Walter White who cooks meth and is diagnosed with cancer. That same year another Walter White was caught cooking meth.

The Simpsons. The Simpsons, a showing following a family in Springfield getting into crazy situations, has a reputations for “predicting the future”. They predicted Trump’s presidency, smart phones, and even the 9/11 tragedy.

I’m sure there are many more examples and theories about this, but these happen to be the most popular. You can take these as a coincidence or believe in this theory that life imitates art.