Super Bowl 60 is over. The Seahawks gained all of it. Dangerous Bunny’s efficiency was superb and simply what was wanted right now. And as ordinary, there have been many, many costly commercials in-between the entire motion. As has been the case for the previous couple of years, principally each advert featured celebs and big-name actors promoting out to assist promote AI, donuts, crackers, and extra. And nearly all of it fucking sucked shit. It’s miserable to look at gifted actors promote out. So lots of the advertisements had been for terrible merchandise. Nothing about them was even enjoyable or memorable.
This 12 months, for the primary time in a bit, I made a decision to skip the Tremendous Bowl. So as an alternative, I solely noticed individuals’s reactions to the advertisements through social media, and it sounded dangerous. However after I wakened this morning and mainlined the entire advertisements, I used to be shocked to find it was worse than I anticipated and even worse than the earlier star-studded sell-out showcase that was Tremendous Bowl 59. American tradition’s advertising machine has hit a brand new low.
Lots of the advertisements featured random assortments of celebs that appeared picked by rolling the cube. Worse, a few of these advertisements used CG to de-age the celebs, compounding the horror. Lots of the advertisements had been too lengthy and felt like practically each advertising company across the nation has forgotten easy methods to really promote individuals stuff. The worst a part of the evening was Dunkin’ Donuts try at making a joke about ’90s sitcoms that seemingly began and ended with the identical juice-less punchline: “Famous Dunkin’ lover Ben Affleck was in a film that kind of rhymes with our firm’s identify.” Just a few million {dollars} later, the top consequence was this CG-face-filled cameo-packed nightmare.
Xfinity additionally received in on the de-aging celebs motion with an advert that, on paper at the very least, seems like a winner. What if Jurassic Park really labored as a result of our firm’s web powered it? Might be humorous, but it surely’s onerous to snicker when confronted with CGI smooth-skinned variations of the movie’s stars inhumanely transferring round like haunted wax figures.
Right here’s a good way to promote AI-assistants: Spend a minute exhibiting all of the methods it might homicide you.
MrBeast was right here too and needed to promote you AI. He additionally demonstrated that regardless of making movies for years on-line, he appears to have zero charisma on digital camera. How was this the very best take?
Then we’ve the case of Sofía Vergara, who wins the award for largest sellout of the evening for showing in three totally different Tremendous Bowl 2026 commercials. Look, $26 million mansions don’t pay for themselves, okay?
In the meantime, Uber Eats continues to run with this advertising marketing campaign constructed round some made-up conspiracy about meals and the NFL, and… look, I do not know why that is speculated to be humorous or entertaining.
Don’t fear, Matthew Broderick was right here to promote AI that may do your job for you in an advert that seems like Genspark needed to choose its star in any case the opposite corporations already had theirs and received caught with Ferris Bueller exhibiting individuals easy methods to AI-maxx at their lifeless workplace jobs.
Keep in mind that factor from the 80s that was standard? I hope so, or in any other case this industrial gained’t make any sense.
Medication maker Novo Nordisk’s Tremendous Bowl advert wins the award for “Most Random Celeb Appearances” by shoving anybody who was accessible in LA on a Tuesday a number of weeks in the past into it.
That is like a kind of SNL faux advertisements that includes an actual product, however by some means even much less humorous.
I’m so drained.
There are such a lot of of those.
Please, I can’t hold watching all of those dangerous, boring, unfunny advertisements starring sellouts.
I’m tapping out right here. This isn’t even all of them, but it surely’s sufficient to see that advertising companies are cooked, AI corporations are determined, and actors not really feel disgrace for promoting out to promote crackers. Dangerous timeline. We have to shut all of it down and begin over.
As I mentioned final 12 months, stars and actors have been popping up in commercials for a very long time. However across the time we entered the 2000s, one thing modified. To cite Zack from 2025:
Positive, should you dig by historical past yow will discover quite a few examples of well-known actors and artists appearing in ads, even throughout the peak of their profession. It undoubtedly occurred. Nevertheless, it was nonetheless a reasonably uncommon prevalence and most big-name actors had been cautious about showing in too many. For instance, Tommy Lee Jones and different Hollywood stars would fly over to Japan and other countries to do commercials so no one over right here within the States would see them. There was nonetheless a concern that should you offered out too a lot and too usually you’d look determined and sign that your profession was ending. And this was the case for many years.
Then Super Bowl commercials became bigger and bigger in the 2000s and firms spent increasingly more to create a viral, standard advert. And as this was occurring, the traces between TV, films, and web content material began to blur, whereas streaming companies and YouTube grew in recognition. Hustle tradition—the assumption that so long as you had been getting paid it was value it—additionally grew throughout this time.I remember people in 2015 cheering Kim Kardashian for showing in an enormous Tremendous Bowl advert and celebrating that she “received paid!” That has led us to nearly every damn Super Bowl ad together with massive identify actos to assist promote soda or crackers. And it’s all so unhappy.
See you subsequent 12 months when a de-aged Mark Hamill makes use of AI to assist him blow up the Dying Star alongside Snoop Dogg and a few ’90s actor who wants to purchase a brand new automobile.
