Temu's "Shop like a Billionaire" Superbowl Ad is a celebration of mindless indulgence

 

Is Temu just Chinese for "Amazon," or what?  I mean, it doesn't seem to be offering anything that Amazon didn't "gift" civilization with more than a decade ago- a really quick way to make impulse buys of cheap crap produced by child labor with the touch of a screen.  I guess Temu just concentrates on all of the amazing "crafts" and clothes that are being disgorged from factories stretching from Manchuria to Senegal?  The very best that tiny little hands can sew and stitch and nail together?

"Shop like a Billionaire" sounds like "shop like money means nothing to you," which sounds cool but for the vast majority of us, money is actually a pretty finite asset that we have to spend carefully to get us from month to month.  Making it super-easy to buy stuff doesn't magically put more of it in our pockets.  Some of us have to actually pay our debts; it sounds like the only billionaire* Temu wants us to shop like is that guy who used to be President of the United States.

And I'm no worshipper of small businesses, but this has to be the most anti-small business, anti- "shop locally" commercial I've ever seen.  Want something available at the store down the street?  Buy a slightly cheaper-at-point-of-contact-but-not-cheaper-in-the-long-run version from your phone and get it sent to you from the other side of the planet at enormous cost TO that planet.  Because that's what a billionaire would do, I guess. 

*not actually a billionaire, like, ever. 

eTrade, Pickleball, the Superbowl, and a world of Dumb.

 

Hey look eTrade is at it again- exploiting toddlers willing to be exploited by their disgusting greedy parents to sell a brokerage service.  Oh, the hilarity. 

In reality, this is another slightly-amusing idea long since beaten into the ground nevertheless resurrected to be turned into a thirty-second ad to be played during the most overrated sporting event of the year: small children being manipulated by a combination of awful parents, an awful ad agency, and and awful CGI to generate yuks from the mouth-breathers in the audience who wonder why the stream of rib-splitting Funny is constantly being interrupted by some Sports Thing which itself is being regularly interrupted by Taylor Swift Sightings.

Anyway, here are some kids trying to play Pickeball because Pickleball is a craze right now, I guess.  And use eTrade.  For Reasons.

Pizza Hut completes the trifecta, and it's no honey

 

Having already established itself in the niche market of peddling poison in the form of processed carbohydrates and fat, Pizza Hut ups the ante by adding sugar to it's baked Death Discs.  What else was it going to do?  Put cheese IN the crust?

To be fair, there was already plenty of sugar on those things- primarily in the "tomato" sauce.  But there's no such thing as too much sucrose, especially now that we know how incredibly addictive (more than heroin or cocaine) it is.  So "for a limited time," we've got pizza drenched in honey "infused" with haberno peppers "to provide just the right balance of sweet and hot," or something.  

Someone else will have to tell me if this junk actually tastes good- honey on a pizza doesn't have any attraction to me, even if it was being offered by an actual pizza place and not being mass produced by a Diabetes Factory like Pizza Hut.  Neither does chronic inflammation, heart disease, or any of the other side effects of eating trash like the stuff dumped into the American diet by Pizza Hut, Domino's, Taco Bell, etc.  I like being able to tie my shoes, walk up a flight of stairs without breaking into a sweat, and getting up from a chair on the first try.  I'm kind of weird that way. 

State Farm, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the ultimate* one-joke Super Bowl Commercial

 

Arnold Schwarzenegger pronounces the word "neighbor" differently from most people currently living in the United States.  He doesn't pronounce it "wrong," he pronounces it differently.

Isn't that hilarious?  Well, it better be- because it's a "joke" that has to carry this overproduced mess of a commercial for an entire sixty seconds.  No kidding- this doesn't get strung out for ten seconds, or even twenty.  We are supposed to find this amusing for sixty seconds.  

Oh and here's Danny DeVito, because he costarred with Schwarzenegger in an overrated comedy during the Bush Administration.  The FIRST one.  So it's funny.  See how that works?

*to be fair, it's really hard to pick which Superbowl commercial is the "ultimate" in beating a single joke to death.  One Joke Stretched out Way Past It's Amusing Point is the common thread connecting pretty much all Superbowl ads.  This is true for primarily two reasons:  First, the ad agency has been handed a lot of money and is obligated to do something impressive with it that also fills every second of the paid-for time.  Second, the ad agency hasn't the slightest clue how to go about filling that time.  They can't do grandmas chasing a bag of State Farm Insurance, and eTrade is already using disgusting CGI-aided toddlers.  So it's Schwarzenegger, DeVito, one stupid joke repeated multiple times, and crossed fingers that 1980s nostalgia comes to the rescue again.

That RFKjr. Superbowl Ad Really Inspired Me!

 

If you want a man for President

Who's just a total loon

with takes on vax and other things 

to make Q-anoners swoon

A man who's like a warped guitar

forever out of tune

it's up to you 

it's up to you

it's strictly up to you....

If you want a man for President

who's slim and fit and tall

a man who doesn't have a clue

and nothing on the ball

sure he's a conspiracy freak and nut

(but Trump once won after all!)

it's up to you

it's up to you

it's strictly up to you... 

If you want a man for President

who isn't Just the Same

a man who's very much like Trump

but even more insane

A man who isn't much at all 

but check out that last name!

it's up to you 

it's up to you

it's strictly up to you....

That Stupid Superbowl Doritos Ad....

 

Oh my god if I had a dime for every commercial that featured

1.  Overly aggressive senior citizens who I guess are supposed to be hi-LARIOUS because they are overly aggressive senior citizens,

2.  several changes in location suggesting a significant investment and production labor to beat a joke older than the senior citizens into the ground, and

3.  a wild chase to obtain Absolutely Nothing of Value Except It's the Last One on the Shelf (that schtick has so much mold on it it can probably cure every case of strep throat in 2024.)

Since nobody is going to make me rich by giving me those dimes, I'll just offer my take to the makers of Doritos:  We know you spent millions getting scientists to design your chips to be as addictive as possible- maybe showing senior citizens willing to kill themselves- and kill others- to get them isn't the best idea for an ad campaign.  But It's no less than I'd expect from a company determined to cash in on the obesity epidemic (or is it now Pandemic?)

Transfixed on one second of this McDonald's Hamburgler-is-back commercial....

 

It's at the 21 second mark.  In the background, we see the blurry image of a single person who has both hands on the table and is staring down at her tray.

What is going on there?  Is she experiencing an epiphany- "oh my god, I am sitting here all by myself at McDonald's,  about to eat greasy, salty junk again?  What has gone wrong with my life?"

"Why am I sitting here with this food?  Why didn't I do what I usually do- use the drive-thru, then pull over to a parking space, consume my bag of overpriced trash, and then have a good cry, like I usually do?"

Or is it ""wait, didn't I order a hamburger?  Why isn't it sitting in front of me.  Maybe I didn't order it.  I don't really remember.  I often don't remember things I did two minutes ago; it might have something to do with a steady diet of empty carbohydrates, salt and fat and not enough actual food.  Oh well- I'm not going to waddle up to the counter and order that hamburger now.  Not in front of these other people.  And I can't just drink my not-milkshake and eat my fried potatoes and then use the drive-thru on the way out; the girl who hands me my bag might recognize me.  I'll just finish up here and then hit one of the other three McDonald's I pass on the way home."  

Whatever it is, it's really sad.  This blurry woman in the background needs help.  The kind of help she won't get from a Health At Every Size "life coach/nutritionist" on Tiktok.  The kind of help she won't get by ignoring nutrition advice from an ACTUAL doctor.  Certainly not the kind of help she'll get from consuming warm trash from McDonald's.  I suggest she seek medical attention, including therapy, to find other ways to cope that don't include clogging her arteries or seeking to dull the pain with "comfort food" that leaves her depressed and addicted.  Good luck to her.