Superbowl

The Superbowl was a whole new level of WTF-ness. From the national anthem to game itself to the half-time show to the commercials, it was all seemingly constructed by someone with a very sick sense of humor.

1. Christina Aguilera screwed up the national anthem. She skipped a verse. She can sing, but I'd appreciate it if she sang the right words. This is the point where it started to go downhill for Pittsburgh, because she's from the area.



Uh, Christina, you forgot the "O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming."

2. I'm a huge Steelers fan, like one those obnoxious ones that yell thinking that Ben Roethlisberger is going to look at the screen and say, "Thanks Kelsey, I'll keep that in mind." The game was terrible. The Steelers were playing defense against themselves, and Green Bay outplayed them in every way. The better team won. I'm just glad it wasn't the Patriots. At least I respect Green Bay.

3. The half-time was awful. Fergie stomped on one of my favorite songs ever in her platform-heeled boot. She then proceed to drive her spiked heel into my heart. Okay, I may be getting dramatic, but when you bring out one of the greatest guitar players of all time, Slash (Guns and Roses), "sing" Sweet Child O' Mine and grind in his general direction, you deserved to be tackled by James Harrison. Black Eyed Peas were terrible live. Then they threw in Usher, but by that point by brain had been turned to scrambled eggs by the travesty and the Tron light show happening in front of me. No wonder so many kids are being diagnosed with A.D.D. After watching that half-time show, I think I may have it too.

Here's the vid...
Caution: Your brain may turn into scrambled eggs. Do not operate heavy machinery.



4. There were some funny commercials.

This was my fave:


With 15 million views on youtube, it seems like a lot of people agree with me. A little creativity goes a long way.

But there were some bad commercials. The worst for me was this one from Groupon:


It's a slap in the face to Tibet. I don't care if you make fun of Ozzy Osbourne's lack of skills with technology, or throw a Pepsi can at someone, but don't make light of the million people that have died in Tibet under Chinese occupation. You don't poke fun at Free Tibet. People's human rights are in question. It would be like poking fun at Darfur or other places of genocide. It's not funny. This was a commercial made in bad taste and Groupon is going to lose a lot of business as this thing continues to blow up.

(Check out http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/02/07/133560977/groupons-tibet-super-bowl-ad-harmless-fun-or-offensive for a follow-up)

Groupon also decided to make fun of deforestation in Brazil and the Save the Whales campaign.






Umm, WTF. Groupon, I hope you go bankrupt and whoever developed these commercials never works in communications again. Not only did your judgment lapse in one commercial, but in three. Your market research, if you did any, must have been faulty. I can't think of any reason why you would pick the the death of whales, the massacre of Tibetans and the destruction of the rain forest to make fun of. It's just idiotic.


Oh, and what statement did Groupon release in response to the backlash from the Tibet ad:

• "The gist of the concept is this: When groups of people act together to do something, it's usually to help a cause. With Groupon, people act together to help themselves by getting great deals. So what if we did a parody of a celebrity-narrated, PSA-style commercial that you think is about some noble cause (such as "Save the Whales"), but then it's revealed to actually be a passionate call to action to help yourself (as in "Save the Money")? Since we grew out of a collective action and philanthropy site (ThePoint.com) and ended up selling coupons, we loved the idea of poking fun at ourselves by talking about discounts as a noble cause. So we bought the spots, hired mockumentary expert Christopher Guest to direct them, enlisted some celebrity faux-philanthropists, and plopped down three Groupon ads before, during, and after the biggest American football game in the world." (from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/07/groupons-tibet-super-bowl-ad-_n_819813.html)

So, basically they're saying, "We're not going to apologize, it's your fault if you don't get our warped sense of humor." Well Groupon, apparently I'm not the only one thinks a million dead is not something to laugh about, from Twitter, retweeted 100+ times:

BorowitzReport:

#SuperBowl I guess Groupon decided to do a funny commercial about Tibet because Darfur would be in bad taste? #adFAIL



devbost:

Dear @Groupon - over a million Tibetans have been killed during Chinese occupation. Your ad wasn't funny. http://bit.ly/e3HVjZ #SuperBowl