The Super Bowl Commercials Targeted A New Generation Of Old Folks
I only realized it was Super Bowl Sunday when I went to Home Depot and the Garden Center was the only section seeing any action. The moment I realized I shouted “MOVE BITCH, I’M MISSING MY COMMERCIALS!” as I pushed an old lady into some zinnias and hightailed it to the car. But I was too late and by the time I got home, I had to find out on Twitter that cryptocurrency, useless apps, and hard seltzer are the future.
After last year’s crop of earnest ads pandering to a frightened and divided nation, I had hoped for a return to normalcy with this year’s ads. But there were only two talking babies (in the same E-Trade commercial):
And one stupid Budweiser Clydesdale:
A single monosyllabic sloth (eating Flamin’ Hot) in lieu of chimps:
I no longer recognize this country, and if it wasn’t for Dolly Parton (for T-Mobile) and Willie Nelson (for Sketchers), I’d be taking a one-way trip into The Metaverse for good. I’d rather live as a free-floating torso than live in a world where Matthew McConaughey drives a hot-air balloon and lectures us about productivity or some shit (for Salesforce) instead of speaking gibberish while driving around in a Lincoln Continental like God intended!
In Matthew’s Salesforce ad, he mocks the Metaverse but Meta did him one better by making a mockery of itself. Somebody on Twitter said that Gen X are the new Boomers and while I very much resent that remark, in typical Gex X fashion, I also don’t care. But it is true that we are old as hell and were blatantly targeted by formally Facebook Meta‘s commercial for Meta Quest 2 which invited us to spend our golden years cacking our pants and eating soft foods while cruising around a virtual Chuck E. Cheese themed Facebook Group retirement village.
Jokes on them because Gen X already thinks everything is dumb. They could have saved a shit-ton on money and just had a bouncing QR code Pong demonstration like Coinbase did in their commercial. Their complete lack of effort warmed my slacker heart. Meta wasn’t the only brand trying to separate the recently geriatric from their hard-earned proto-crypto. A whole bunch of ads were marketed towards the generation who might describe the Half-Time show line-up as “dope.” We had Mike Myers dusting off Dr. Evil in an Austin Powers spot for General Motors, and Donald Faison and Zach Braff from Scrubs signing a riff on I Feel Pretty across white picket fences for T-Mobile:
There was also an extremely unwelcome extreme closeup of Jim Carrey‘s face as The Cable Guy in a spot for Verizon and Meadow Soprano trucking across the New Jersey Turnpike in a remake of The Sopranos opening credits for an all-electric Chevy Silverado.
Why it’s almost enough ham-fisted nostalgia calling me old to get me to sign up for eToro or Monday.com, whatever they are. I just know that both of those ads inexplicably featured people getting raptured.
Call me a New Boomer if you must, but I would rather be raptured than ever put on VR goggles. I like Super Bowl commercials like they had in the good old days. The uglier, louder, and more confusing the better. That’s why my favorite spot was Guy Fieri‘s Bud Light Hard Soda Seltzer ad because what in the hell is that even? Is it beer, soda, or seltzer? From the very first moment when two of General Zod’s lackeys jump out of a refrigerator and steal some party peoples’ ice bucket which leads everybody through a magic portal into The Land of Loud Flavors which has at its center a butt-naked Guy Fieri fountain that dribbles flavor out its ass. As God intended!
See, now THAT’S what I’m talking about! A lot of real-ass money was spent on a nonsense script, nonsense sets, nonsense FX, and a nonsense tagline all for a nonsense product! Just a loud and proud nonsensical waste of resources if not talent. That’s the little piece of the American dream I root for every year. Well, that and The Rapture.
Pic: YouTube