America's Latest Victim of Over-Exposure
That would be the Super Bowl, now in its 48th year.
Let's look at what that means in today's over-marketed, over-saturated contemporary culture.
In order to do that, first set that thought aside and think about topic sentences. You know, the thing 6th grade teachers used to club us about when we couldn't find the main point during English class. The thing that no longer matters because everything flows together like the Ohio and Missouri into the Mississippi. (Woa, how very #DennisMiller of me just then.)
Our culture is suffering because of marketing bleed and the Super Bowl is a perfect representation. The game that used to be about football is now about what people do with football as an add-on. Super Bowl Sunday has been hijacked. The pre-shows for the recent Bowl had television and film stars taking photo shoots promoting their next project in the context of "being caught attending the Super bowl". I love you Hugh Jackman, but do I really need to know about Wolverine 9 coming out in May? And my beloved Kevin Bacon, I am so happy about your new show but even you looked disappointed with yourself as you stepped onto that little mini-interview stage-let. Since when is a championship game about celebrity obligation? I thought we were gonna hear more football talk during all of the pre-game fanfare. Tell me more about that stadium and the actual attendance for the game. Answer fun questions about the number of jerseys each player has. But don't drag in Halloween.
I liken this game-skew to someone's comment to me a few years ago when our family was going through a crisis. Instead of empathizing what we were going through, they said "imagine how I feel with you and this crisis? This is so upsetting to me and my life." Our world has moved to this detached, self-focused mindset where we make everything about us, even when it isn't. "You broke your leg? That is so awful, it is really stressing me out thinking about that."
Watch me watch the thing that's going on. Hence the pre-Bowl shows promoting celebs getting ready to watch the main thing. Brilliant marketing twist for sure. That way, everything applies in advertising. Including promoting Halloween on February 2 which they might as well have done. Using that mindset, yesterday should have been a Super Bowl Documentary about wheat I did each part of the day before, during and after the "big event". After all, everything ties to the Super Bowl.
Along with over-promotion and overreach comes the problem with over-expectations. The final score proves this. No wait, the first quarter did. For all the talk and all the predictions, Denver fell flat on its face. Toward the end of the game it was even painful to see the losing team's close ups - they were clearly stupefied. Eli Manning was captured in the seats with his face stuck on "stun" setting. What about all the talking heads and their pre-game banter about whether Peyton should retire after he won today or play a few more years? One sage said he should stay on after today's win and win 3 more and then retire he's so on top of his game.
Everything had been so over-talked nothing lived up to our high bar. Not the action in the game, not the commercials and not the half-time show. Okay, Bruno was great but what about the cave men who leapt on stage in the middle of washing their truck out back? What was that, actually? Was their stylist the only person in North America who did not know it is a major big deal to be the Super Bowl Half Time Show? It looked like Bruno had rehearsed for months while his co-stars just showed up. I had more fun on Twitter reading the comments from the 501 people I follow - many are celebrities fortunate enough to view from across the country in their own zen and not a forced part of that ridiculous the cattle call.
So what did we learn? That next year is going to be even more outrageous and over-exposed. It has to be. Even more people will be standing around thrusting microphones in the faces of even more unrelated celebrities. Mrs. Fields, how many cookies will you sell on this big day? Starbucks, do you know if the groundhog has seen its shadow? Otherwise, how else will those ratings beat this year's? They had better start doing some advance PR in Phoenix on Mother's Day. And hold on for Super Bowl 5-0 in San Francisco. Or better yet, move there now and open up a T-shirt shop and get ready for your slice of the big ol' underwhelming American Pie.
Time to go. Gotta turn in my patten for a Super Bowl 59 pencil sharpener and matching chain saw signed by the Prince of Wales.
Let's look at what that means in today's over-marketed, over-saturated contemporary culture.
In order to do that, first set that thought aside and think about topic sentences. You know, the thing 6th grade teachers used to club us about when we couldn't find the main point during English class. The thing that no longer matters because everything flows together like the Ohio and Missouri into the Mississippi. (Woa, how very #DennisMiller of me just then.)
Our culture is suffering because of marketing bleed and the Super Bowl is a perfect representation. The game that used to be about football is now about what people do with football as an add-on. Super Bowl Sunday has been hijacked. The pre-shows for the recent Bowl had television and film stars taking photo shoots promoting their next project in the context of "being caught attending the Super bowl". I love you Hugh Jackman, but do I really need to know about Wolverine 9 coming out in May? And my beloved Kevin Bacon, I am so happy about your new show but even you looked disappointed with yourself as you stepped onto that little mini-interview stage-let. Since when is a championship game about celebrity obligation? I thought we were gonna hear more football talk during all of the pre-game fanfare. Tell me more about that stadium and the actual attendance for the game. Answer fun questions about the number of jerseys each player has. But don't drag in Halloween.
I liken this game-skew to someone's comment to me a few years ago when our family was going through a crisis. Instead of empathizing what we were going through, they said "imagine how I feel with you and this crisis? This is so upsetting to me and my life." Our world has moved to this detached, self-focused mindset where we make everything about us, even when it isn't. "You broke your leg? That is so awful, it is really stressing me out thinking about that."
Watch me watch the thing that's going on. Hence the pre-Bowl shows promoting celebs getting ready to watch the main thing. Brilliant marketing twist for sure. That way, everything applies in advertising. Including promoting Halloween on February 2 which they might as well have done. Using that mindset, yesterday should have been a Super Bowl Documentary about wheat I did each part of the day before, during and after the "big event". After all, everything ties to the Super Bowl.
Along with over-promotion and overreach comes the problem with over-expectations. The final score proves this. No wait, the first quarter did. For all the talk and all the predictions, Denver fell flat on its face. Toward the end of the game it was even painful to see the losing team's close ups - they were clearly stupefied. Eli Manning was captured in the seats with his face stuck on "stun" setting. What about all the talking heads and their pre-game banter about whether Peyton should retire after he won today or play a few more years? One sage said he should stay on after today's win and win 3 more and then retire he's so on top of his game.
Everything had been so over-talked nothing lived up to our high bar. Not the action in the game, not the commercials and not the half-time show. Okay, Bruno was great but what about the cave men who leapt on stage in the middle of washing their truck out back? What was that, actually? Was their stylist the only person in North America who did not know it is a major big deal to be the Super Bowl Half Time Show? It looked like Bruno had rehearsed for months while his co-stars just showed up. I had more fun on Twitter reading the comments from the 501 people I follow - many are celebrities fortunate enough to view from across the country in their own zen and not a forced part of that ridiculous the cattle call.
So what did we learn? That next year is going to be even more outrageous and over-exposed. It has to be. Even more people will be standing around thrusting microphones in the faces of even more unrelated celebrities. Mrs. Fields, how many cookies will you sell on this big day? Starbucks, do you know if the groundhog has seen its shadow? Otherwise, how else will those ratings beat this year's? They had better start doing some advance PR in Phoenix on Mother's Day. And hold on for Super Bowl 5-0 in San Francisco. Or better yet, move there now and open up a T-shirt shop and get ready for your slice of the big ol' underwhelming American Pie.
Time to go. Gotta turn in my patten for a Super Bowl 59 pencil sharpener and matching chain saw signed by the Prince of Wales.
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