Consumer Bowl 2023
As someone who has spent a lifetime in front of television screens — and is actively trying to degrow that habit — I could not help but be caught up in the gross spectacle that is the Super Bowl. Yesterday’s monument to overconsumption — which ended in a victory for the newly-minted mother Rhianna (as well as some other people wearing red) — filled my brain with a few thoughts:
~ These days I often find myself wondering: do people from my country realize that most of the world’s restaurants, cafes, and bars do not contain oversized flatscreen TV’s? In this country, especially if you are headed out to brunch — where you plan to immediately order a cappuccino, club soda, bloody mary, and/or bottomless mimosas in the same breath — you are automatically ruling out any establishment that does not contain any less than a half-dozen 60” plasmas. How can one possible enjoy curing a hangover without Guinness, overpriced eggs, and a litany of lumens in your face?
~As someone who (incidentally) holds a degree in marketing, and knows just how diabolically evil it is, I have trained my brain to ignore television commercials. In a world where the exponential function has lost all meaning (we have gone from daily ad exposure rates of 500–1600/day in the 70s, to 6000–10,000/day currently…um, what?), I have waged a personal war against advertising. If anyone is looking for tips, here is what I do: I let my mind wander as soon as a commercial begins playing. I just start thinking about LITERALLY anything else other than what is in front of my eyes (usually an idea/prompt for a future writing piece; or perhaps something more lighthearted, such as the inevitable collapse of the global supply chain at the hands of neoliberal capitalism). Mute the commercial if you must, but the pros don’t waste their time fiddling with remotes.
~That being said, I did my best to pay attention the ads this year. Three of them I found especially insidious and disturbing. The first, and most obvious display of everything wrong with the world, was for an online shopping app that I will not even dignify by mentioning its name. Its slogan was “shop like a billionaire”… Yes, we all know that billionaires shop frivolously, and spend lavish amounts of largely unearned intergenerational wealth on everything from: private planes they commute in to avoid traffic; gas-guzzling automobiles that they never drive because of, you know, traffic; bottles of wine that are priced higher than the average person’s annual income; and one-of-a-kind articles of clothing that they can only wear once before they auction it off and donate the proceeds to charity (hopefully). One thing billionaires do not do though, is spend $5.99 on jackets and dresses. The billionaires profit off of our addiction to fast-fashion, then they get chauffeured to Hermes and Gucci.
~One quick note about charity. The NFL acknowledges and celebrates a player each year with the Walter Payton Man-of-the-Year award, displaying its grotesque ability to turn even the act of giving back to your community into a competition. Why are we celebrating those who give back, when we could be calling out those who do not? I propose a counter-competition where we line up all of the most selfish millionaire sports athletes who have given nothing to charity and tar-and-feather them. Maybe then they more would be inclined to give back to their communities. It’s called negative reinforcement, NFL, maybe you’ve heard of it?
~The second worst thing I saw on television yesterday was Amazon’s attempt to humanize itself through the carefully-crafted portrayal of people and their love for puppies. Upon my first viewing of the ad, it appeared as if The Company is about to begin shipping puppies to stoops all over the country (a terrible idea given the amount of package theft in this dog-eat-dog world), but upon careful reflection it becomes somewhat-apparent that only the kennel was purchased via Amazon’s primetime payment pipeline of perpetual puppy pleasure. Conspicuously absent in the commercial and left on the editing room floor is the missing scene where the humans went to their local shelter or breeder to purchase a furry friend for their lonely pup. If the point was to manipulatively and subversively associate a soulless corporation with family, love, and dogs, congratulations Jeffrey Bezos — you did it!
~Lastly, the award for the single most awful thing to flash before my eyes yesterday was…a last ditch effort by the billionaire Christian conservatives (the ones who own Hobby Lobby) to market a religion that is seeing a huge drop in attendance in the 21st century. The two commercials showed a series of high quality, immersive photos and short video clips of humans; one displayed happy moments, and the other, portrayals of anger. Both ended with references to Jesus Christ , a self-described socialist (Matthew 19:24 reads, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”; [still don’t believe me? here is another one..] “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Matthew 19:21) and possibly the most controversial human to ever exist. The goal of the $100+ million marketing campaign, which will extend far beyond the two ads aired in primetime, is to bring people back into churches. Whether the motives are fear, anger, joy, or happiness, there’s a pew waiting for you at your local Christian megachurch. Emotional fear-mongering aside, this ad was powerful, well-executed, and obviously put-together by the best marketing firm money can buy. Because of all of those reasons, I found it absolutely TERRIFYING.
Final thought: Advertisements used to do nothing more than thoroughly and thoughtfully explain a product or service so the careful consumer could make the best choice when purchasing the things they need. In the last century it has ballooned into one of the biggest industries on the planet. It is time to pop that balloon. Imagine what we might be able to accomplish in this world if we were not constantly bombarded by images that do nothing but lower our self-esteem? Picture a world where we regulated how much money could be spent on marketing… In that world I would have actually written about the damn game.
