After getting the projector ready, preparing the copious amounts of nachos, and corralling all the attendees into the tightly packed room, my friends and I turned on the broadcast only to be greeted with Post Malone playing an acoustic guitar opening the Super Bowl. This American tradition (the Super Bowl, not Post Malone) dates back 58 years, which is approximately one fifth of our country’s existence. And despite being one of the most watched events in the country every year, the organizers always run the event late in the evening on a Sunday in the middle of February. This weird time of the year, of day, and even of the week considering it’s a school night is just where the weirdness of the Super Bowl begins. I think the best way to sum up it up is the promotional message that came on right before the game started: “We’ll be right back with more football and more commercials after these messages.”
If there is one thing no one actually knows about, it’s the rules of American Football. But no one watches the Super Bowl for the actual sporting event. Why would you? There is barely any sport being played. The majority of the watch time is dedicated for corporate America (and Temu) to show the world how messed up some of their ad ideas are. The constant stream of advertisements are occasionally broken up by play that distracts from the main event: Big Pharma’s new drug advertisement. But this Super Bowl had some more drama than the usual ad debauchery.
Taylor Swift was in the audience to watch as her boyfriend Tyler Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, who ended up winning the game apparently (I didn’t stay to watch that far), was in the audience. Her presence there probably helped the viewership boom and really gave Bridgerton vibes as the cameramen would frequently cut to her as if the Queen announced she was the Season’s Diamond (in many ways she is, but there’s a lot more to that than the Super Bowl can contextualize).
Like most people, I did not watch the entire Super Bowl and stopped after this halftime show. This latest iteration featured Usher who, like most Super Bowl halftime artists, is about 10 years too late to be performing in such an event (the man can dance though, I will give him that). The Halftime Show is probably the closest thing America has to Eurovision and can provide some truly unmemorable performances, but also some occasional memorable ones (Lady Gaga’s 2017 halftime show was truly an exceptional performance).
Overall, seeing this Super Bowl was quite interesting now that I’ve been out of the U.S. for three years. I was a lot more self-aware of the corporatized element of the event; something that used to be quite funny was now very peculiar and strange. This realization was cut short by the fact that this is probably something my non-American friends had already known and had only seen the Super Bowl for how truly strange it is and I had been the one pulled out of the American Matrix. In my extremely drunken state, I made one final adage after the halftime show ended along with our attention span for the Super Bowl: “We fought the Mexican-American War so Usher could sing the Super Bowl halftime show in Las Vegas”. That is a factually correct statement and exactly why the Super Bowl is the most authentically American piece of culture currently.
“Super seats at Super Bowl 50” by jurvetson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Related
Commercial-ception: the Super Bowl experience
After getting the projector ready, preparing the copious amounts of nachos, and corralling all the attendees into the tightly packed room, my friends and I turned on the broadcast only to be greeted with Post Malone playing an acoustic guitar opening the Super Bowl. This American tradition (the Super Bowl, not Post Malone) dates back 58 years, which is approximately one fifth of our country’s existence. And despite being one of the most watched events in the country every year, the organizers always run the event late in the evening on a Sunday in the middle of February. This weird time of the year, of day, and even of the week considering it’s a school night is just where the weirdness of the Super Bowl begins. I think the best way to sum up it up is the promotional message that came on right before the game started: “We’ll be right back with more football and more commercials after these messages.”
If there is one thing no one actually knows about, it’s the rules of American Football. But no one watches the Super Bowl for the actual sporting event. Why would you? There is barely any sport being played. The majority of the watch time is dedicated for corporate America (and Temu) to show the world how messed up some of their ad ideas are. The constant stream of advertisements are occasionally broken up by play that distracts from the main event: Big Pharma’s new drug advertisement. But this Super Bowl had some more drama than the usual ad debauchery.
Taylor Swift was in the audience to watch as her boyfriend Tyler Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, who ended up winning the game apparently (I didn’t stay to watch that far), was in the audience. Her presence there probably helped the viewership boom and really gave Bridgerton vibes as the cameramen would frequently cut to her as if the Queen announced she was the Season’s Diamond (in many ways she is, but there’s a lot more to that than the Super Bowl can contextualize).
Like most people, I did not watch the entire Super Bowl and stopped after this halftime show. This latest iteration featured Usher who, like most Super Bowl halftime artists, is about 10 years too late to be performing in such an event (the man can dance though, I will give him that). The Halftime Show is probably the closest thing America has to Eurovision and can provide some truly unmemorable performances, but also some occasional memorable ones (Lady Gaga’s 2017 halftime show was truly an exceptional performance).
Overall, seeing this Super Bowl was quite interesting now that I’ve been out of the U.S. for three years. I was a lot more self-aware of the corporatized element of the event; something that used to be quite funny was now very peculiar and strange. This realization was cut short by the fact that this is probably something my non-American friends had already known and had only seen the Super Bowl for how truly strange it is and I had been the one pulled out of the American Matrix. In my extremely drunken state, I made one final adage after the halftime show ended along with our attention span for the Super Bowl: “We fought the Mexican-American War so Usher could sing the Super Bowl halftime show in Las Vegas”. That is a factually correct statement and exactly why the Super Bowl is the most authentically American piece of culture currently.
Strikes in the Age of Student Customers
“Super seats at Super Bowl 50” by jurvetson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Share this:
Like this:
Related