Super Bowl Viewers Flay ‘Dystopian’ Commercials for Heavy Lean on AI, Crypto and Weight Loss: ‘Golden Era’ Is Over
While some watch the Super Bowl each year for the game, others go for the halftime show, and still others are mostly just there for the commercials. But, this year, viewers were pretty irritated by those ads, noticing that many of them seem to center on the same few products.
“My takeaway from the super bowl ads is that the entire American economy is being propped up by AI, weight loss drugs, cryptocurrency and gambling,” Axios reporter Andrew Solender observed online on Sunday night. He wasn’t the only one who noticed it either.
“All the super bowl ads being for ai, surveillance technologies, glp-1, scientology, gambling… the golden era of super bowl ads is kinda over,” YouTuber and actor Tyler Oakley mourned.
There were a few specific commercials that drew especially harsh criticism, including one for the weight loss drug Ro, which aired an ad starring tennis legend Serena Williams.
One fan opined that it felt like a “Black Mirror” episode, while others argued that it was a result of Williams facing criticisms on her body for years.
“This is so sick mind you this woman has been in great health for most of her life,” one viewer wrote.
Ring also faced harsh criticism for their Super Bowl spot, which touted the ability of their video doorbells to sync up and locate lost pets. Many viewers immediately questioned the security of the feature, pointing out that it could be used for more than just locating animals.
“Yeah so this is beyond evil and disgusting,” one user wrote. “Hopefully i don’t need to explain why giving an ai company access to your security cameras and allowing them to actively surveil/track/identify whatever they want from it is a bad thing.”
One viewer even compared it to the technology created by Bruce Wayne in “The Dark Knight,” which allowed him to turn every cell phone and device in the city into a surveillance tool.
Coinbase, a bitcoin company, also drew the ire of viewers, when they ran an ad that started out as a karaoke moment. Fans happily sang along with the Backstreet Boys’ hit “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” as lyrics flashed onscreen, only for the final lyric cards to reveal that it was actually an ad for cryptocurrency.
“The room I’m in ERUPTED in boos when we found out it was a coinbase ad,” one person posted. Another offered video evidence of exactly that happening.
You can see more reactions to this year’s Super Bowl commercials below.
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