Welcome to Eater's Weekend Special, an inside look at what our staff was buzzing about this week
It's a week after the Rihanna Bowl, and iconic pregnancy announcements aside, the whole thing feels like a blur. I ate some quesadillas at home; I decried the absolutely boring final five or so minutes of the game itself. I also — with the exception of two that involved puppies — cannot remember a single Super Bowl commercial that aired during the game.
It didn't used to be this way. As Eater's Greg Morabito put it in 2017, Super Bowl commercials were among our original memes, quick blips designed to elicit an emotional response, then live on in the next week's water cooler conversations and maybe, just maybe, forever: Think McDonald's and Michael Jordan, Britney and Pepsi, even those dumb Budweiser frogs. Ranking Super Bowl commercials was once a beloved Monday-morning exercise. But scanning through a full list now only vaguely jogs my memory: Oh right, tons of celebrities collected a brand paycheck, Cher Horowitz still looks great in plaid, but mostly, this aired during the Super Bowl?
Part of this apathy has to do with brands attempting to meme the commercials before they even air. Photos of Ben Affleck working at a Boston-area Dunkin' Donuts — and the fan-made memes that followed — were far, far more amusing than the commercial itself. (So was the idea of Jennifer Lopez hanging out at a Dunkin'.) Martha Stewart posting this out-of-context Instagram photo of her getting a Snoop Dogg tattoo was always clearly for an ad, but it revealed the only good joke in the resulting Super Bowl commercial for Skechers shoes. Even the "bad" commercials — a Breaking Bad reunion on behalf of PopCorners chips, which compared the snack to meth? — were bad because they were lazy, barely written and overly reliant on celebrity cameos.
But mostly, when brands release commercials early, drop hints on social media, and effectively chase virality before the big game, we're left with the opposite of excitement. Nothing feels like a surprise. The highlight of Affleck's Dunkin' commercial, in fact, is the man picking up his drive-thru order who deadpans a "no" when asked if he recognizes the Oscar winner standing before him. In contrast to everyone else's shocked gasps and jaw-drops of delight, his reaction is unexpected, and even slightly rude. Just like a good Super Bowl commercial should be. — Erin DeJesus
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