It’s kind of difficult to not put too much stock in all those eerie coronavirus predictions we’ve seen in so far from The Simpsons, Tangled, and Space Jam, but the scarily similar parallels of what unfolds in the Spider-Man PS4 video game and the COVID-19 pandemic is too much to ignore this time.
Speaking of video games, the GOAT team gush over ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
Let’s break this COVID-19 prediction thingy down from the top, starting with what unfolds in Spider-Man. In the second half of the PS4 game, Peter Parker fails to stop Doc Ock from releasing a virus called ‘Devil’s Breath‘, which attacks people’s immune systems, is incredibly contagious, and can be fatal if left untreated. The symptoms are close to the flu but some people can remain asymptomatic.
Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
The subsequent behaviour of the public in Spider-Man in response to COVID-19 Devil’s Breath is also eerily similar to how we reacted to the coronavirus pandemic. Lockdown rules are implemented, people are taking to social media as a coping mechanism, PSAs telling people to “stay home” and wear masks are everywhere, and news outlets are providing updates on the pandemic for the public.
Hell, the game even has a small group of idiots sharing misinformation about what’s happening.
Where things deviate from real life is how Spider-Man depicts an all-out war between criminals, the police and an armed militia amidst the pandemic, though it’s not a stretch to say that we’re only a few degrees of separation from that based on the ridiculous anti-lockdown protests going on.
Beyond the similarities between COVID-19 and Devil’s Breath, Spider-Man also somehow nailed the piss-poor response to both pandemics.
In the PS4 game, the mayor of New York City, businessman-turned-politician Norman Osborn, struggles to contain the virus properly and quickly pins the blame on Spider-Man.
In the real world, New York City has been badly hit by COVID-19. While its mayor, Andrew Cuomo, is actually competent and has done an admirable job during these tough times, the same can’t be said about the businessman-turned-politician who is running around as U.S. Cheeto-in-Chief.
Trump’s efforts in containing the coronavirus been piss poor (and dangerous) to put it lightly. Not only is he trying to monetise the pandemic, he’s trying to gaslight the American population on how relief efforts are really going while trying to throw people under the bus for his own leadership failures.
At least Norman Osborn wasn’t a flaming racist, unlike someone in the White House we all know.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, we should definitely point out that all these ridiculously accurate similarities between Devil’s Breath and COVID-19 are pure coincidence and there’s just no way the developers of Spider-Man could’ve made such a wild coronavirus prediction when they were working on the PS4 game.
Now apropos of nothing, here’s hoping a sequel to Spider-Man comes out soon because I need to see what happens in the future play it.
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