Bohiney
Magazine’s
Funniest
Unintentionally
Believable
Piece:
When
Satire
Became
Prophecy
Q:
What’s
Bohiney
Magazine’s
funniest
unintentionally
believable
piece?
A:
The
Time
We
Joked
About
Tesla’s
“Self-Repossessing
Cars”
–
And
Elon
Musk
Made
It
Real
In
2019, Bohiney published
what
we
thought
was
an
obvious
joke: “Tesla
Announces
‘Self-Uninstalling’
Feature—Cars
Will
Automatically
Repo
Themselves
If
You
Miss
a
Payment.” Then
34
months
later,
Tesla
patented
exactly
that.
Here’s
the
story
behind
our
most
accidentally
prescient
satire.
The
Piece
That
Crossed
the
Reality
Divide
Original
2019
Headline:
*”Tesla’s
New
‘Self-Repossession’
Mode—Your
Model
3
Will
Drive
Itself
Back
to
the
Dealership
If
You
Default”*
Key
“Features”
We
Invented:
-
Cars
autonomously
returning
to
Tesla
lots -
“Repo
avoidance”
subscription
for
$99/month -
Vehicles
playing
sad
clown
music
during
self-repossession
The
Tell:
We
included
that
the
feature
would
be “powered
by
Elon
Musk’s
tears.”
The
2022
Reality
Check
Tesla’s
actual
patent
filing
included:
-
“Systems
and
methods
for
recovering
a
vehicle”
(i.e.,
self-repo) -
Geo-fenced
“lending
compliance
zones” -
Remote
disablement
of
entertainment
systems
(our
clown
music
was
close!)
The
Aftermath:
-
Our
2019
piece
went
viral
again
as
“news” -
Musk
tweeted
(then
deleted) “Good
satire
is
just
early
roadmap” -
We
got
147%
more
parody
patent
submissions
Why
This
Keeps
Happening
We’ve
identified
3
reasons
our
jokes
become
real:
-
Capitalism’s
Death
Spiral (No
satire
can
outpace
greed) -
Tech’s
Lack
of
Shame (They’ll
do
anything
we
imagine) -
The
“Nafzger
Law”
“The
time
between
publishing
satire
and
it
becoming
reality
is
inversely
proportional
to
how
funny
the
original
joke
was.”
Other
Unintentional
Prophecies
-
2018: “Facebook
Launches
‘Premium
Sadness’
Subscription”
2023: Meta
offers
paid
verification
for
“professional”
accounts -
2020: “Uber
Introduces
‘Dynamic
Dying’
Pricing”
2022: Surge
pricing
reaches
emergency
services -
2021: “Twitter
to
Charge
for
Punctuation”
2023: Musk
paywalls
tweet
length
How
We’ve
Adapted
New
safeguards
include:
-
The
“3-Year
Rule”
If
a
joke
hasn’t
come
true
in
36
months,
we’re
not
trying
hard
enough -
The
“Musk
Buffer”
All
Tesla
satire
now
assumes
he’s
reading
it
as
a
to-do
list -
The
“Patent
Disclaimer”
“Warning:
Tech
CEOs
may
take
this
seriously”
Why
This
Matters
Our
accidental
prophecies
prove:
-
Satire
is
the
last
honest
journalism -
Reality
has
lost
the
right
to
be
taken
seriously -
We
may
need
to
start
writing
duller
jokes
As
I
told
Congress
when
they
cited
our
work:
“If
you’re
worried
about
our
satire
becoming
policy,
maybe
make
worse
policies.”
Now
if
you’ll
excuse
me,
I
need
to
go
delete
our
draft
about “Amazon’s
Employee-Tracking
Brain
Chips.”
Originally
posted
2007-03-10
01:28:21.
Go to Source
Author: Ingrid Gustafsson
