Time passes differently when you’re waiting for Rihanna to take the stage for her first live performance in more than five years. On Sunday night, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs played the first—and I’m guessing here—16-hour half of a Super Bowl. Fortunately, the second, post-Rihanna half passed much more swiftly and contained some highly compelling football right down to the final seconds … or at least that’s what I’m told. For a certain set of people, the Super Bowl isn’t so much about sportsmanship or the enduring triumph of the human spirit, etc.—it is almost entirely about watching a perfect 13-minute halftime performance that you’ll be forcing others to watch for years to come, questioning the current state of marketing, and maybe learning what offensive pass interference is against your will.
For those people, the highest stakes going into Super Bowl LVII were around the preservation of the Kelce family’s bonds (fortunately: fine), whether we’d get any new Cocaine Bear footage (unfortunately: no), and Rihanna’s long-awaited return to the stage (surprise twist: WITH CHILD). In the end, Kansas City took home the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Patrick Mahomes was awarded MVP, but in the hours before that, a number of non-football moments took the most coveted trophy of all: brief pop cultural relevance.
Winner: The Kelce Family
If you haven’t spent the past few weeks hearing Travis “Uncle Travy” Kelce greet his niece with “Hey, baby girl, how you doin’,” then congratulations, because your life has not yet been ruined by TikTok. But if you have been paying attention to the algorithmic stylings of the nation’s most beloved bearded men, then you know about this year’s adorable matchup between Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and his brother, Eagles center Jason Kelce. If Parenthood, This Is Us, and therapy have taught the world anything, it’s that adult sibling relationships are compelling stuff, and the NFL took this lesson to heart on Sunday. When Babyface sang, “And crown thy good with brotherhood” before the game, you better believe we got a shot of the Kelce brothers looking glassy-eyed. When Travis caught the game’s first touchdown, cameras cut to Jason having a snack on the sidelines. And though Travis’s touchdown ultimately contributed to the Chiefs’ win, no Kelce won bigger on Sunday night than Mama Kelce, who debuted her Chiefs-meets-Eagles OOTD on Twitter to more than 200,000 likes. Indeed, the drip was truly unmatched:
Loser: Nick Sirianni’s Meme-able Tear Ducts
Any number of things could have brought Eagles coach Nick Sirianni to tears during Sunday’s national anthem: the vocal stylings of Chris Stapleton, the impending pressure of the year’s biggest game, faulty contacts, seasonal allergies, stubbing his toe, the wrong Gatorade flavor, a pets-recognizing-their-owners-after-years-apart compilation on YouTube …
It could have been anything, but the real reason for the tears no longer matters. Because the moment cameras captured Sirianni’s tears falling, his face became an instant meme for anything that makes one suddenly and overwhelmingly emotional. In terms of relevancy, Sirianni’s tear-strewn face is an absolute win (some pop culture writers may not have even known who he was before this!). But in terms of how Sirianni likely feels about the association of this visual representation of his own emotions with his Eagles’ eventual and actually emotional loss … well, there’s a meme for that.
Winner: A-Listers Going Local
You guys. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez weren’t accidentally having a tense argument on camera at the Grammys last week—they were just running lines for their Super Bowl commercial! Does Ben Affleck need that Dunkin’ cash? Probably not. But the Boston boy is the no. 1 Dunkin’ fan, a brand loyalist through and through, and it’s not inconceivable that Affleck simply slid behind the Dunkin’ drive-through register for a free visor and the love of the game (J.Lo’s general distaste for her husband’s tastes … also conceivable). And speaking of love of the game, this Super Bowl was both unofficially and officially brought to you by Bradley Cooper, local Philly son of a local Philly mom, both of whom starred in a T-Mobile ad on Sunday, the premise of which was that they tried to film a T-Mobile ad, but Cooper’s mom was such a goofball, they just had to roll the bloopers. It was incredibly charming, and the first thing Cooper’s mom told him was that his haircut looked bad—and I love her for that.
Loser: Scan the QR Code
I’m sorry, did a slip of the hand cause me to accidentally apply for a part-time job scanning QR codes while I was innocently trying to google “Travis Kelce saying hi baby girl”? Why is every Super Bowl teaser trailer insisting that I scan a QR code to “watch the full trailer online”? Hey, Star-Lord—I’m online right now! And I’m too busy looking at Tear-ianni memes to, I guess, pause the TV, get up from my seat, walk up to the screen, scan this QR code with my phone, and then watch a longer movie trailer. Does anyone actually do this? Please just give me all the trailer content you have right now, on the TV that I’m currently looking at. Please don’t think that I will put down this seven-layer dip to see more Ezra Millers! The trailer teases were bad enough for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and The Flash, but I absolutely draw the line at being sucked into a comedic roast of Mr. Peanut (“There’s rich, and then there’s haven’t-worn-pants-in-100-years rich”), only to be told that I’ll have to seek out the rest of these peanut puns on the World Wide Web. This is why you’re no longer welcome in airplanes and elementary schools, Peanut!
Winner: Celebrities Too Famous for Cameo, but Not Too Famous for This
Did Rihanna issue some sort of celebrity quota that the Super Bowl had to meet before she’d let them air the halftime show? Because most commercials this year didn’t just trot out one or two celebrities (and their moms)—they were hitting us with entire smorgasbords of “I know that’s not who I think it is” in 30-second spots. Sometimes these people were very famous, like the power coupling of Serena Williams and Brian Cox in a Michelob Ultra ad. Sometimes these people were linked by a streaming platform and absolutely nothing else, like the Paramount+ unholy trinity of Sylvester Stallone (and his daughters), Thomas Lennon, and Dora the Explorer. Over the course of one night, Tony Romo appeared approximately eight different times. And even in commercials you thought were going celebrity-free, all of a sudden Meghan Trainor would show up with her hand stuck in a Pringles can. And you know what? It was all pretty good! I don’t begrudge Adam Driver shilling for SquareSpace or Will Ferrell driving an electric truck through multiple TV tropes for Netflix—they’ve given us so much, they deserve an easy paycheck every once in a while.
Draw: Nostalgia
As if you didn’t already have a tall enough task explaining who Jack Harlow is to your mom, there was an entire other subgenre of celebrity commercials wherein beloved actors reprised their most iconic roles to sell snack foods and browser add-ons. Some of these were more welcome than others. Alicia Silverstone slipped so effortlessly back into her Cher Horowitz persona that Rakuten’s Clueless revival couldn’t help but bring back warm memories. On the other hand, the Breaking Bad boys suiting back up in beanies and bald caps less than a decade after their finale just to sell PopCorners (which are, perhaps unwisely, being likened to the actual meth from the show) felt like a little too much, a little too soon. That brief glimpse of Michael Keaton as Batman, however, almost had me reaching for the remote, in order to reach for my phone, in order to scan the QR code, in order to go online and watch the rest of The Flash trailer. Almost.
Loser: Twist Endings
Multiple black-and-white photo montages that were ultimately revealed to be advertising for Jesus (yes, just … Jesus); an anxiety-inducing dog food commercial that really made it seem like the dog would die at the end; a fake portion of the Fox broadcast that turned into the Tubi home screen and convinced millions of viewers that their TVs had just become sentient and were in the thrall of a bottom-tier streaming service intent on making them watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith; a trailer for a movie starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck about the creation of Air Jordans that legitimately seemed like it was a comedic sketch for a fake movie about the creation of Air Jordans …
Some story arcs just can’t be accomplished in 30 seconds—and perhaps shouldn’t be accomplished for $7 million.
Winner: U2’s Relentless Guerrilla Marketing
Considering that we all spent years with a U2 album nonconsensually programmed into our iPhones, and after seeing the band’s ad for its Las Vegas residency (featuring people looking up at an orb in the sky), it really does not seem that implausible that the “Chinese balloon” (and all other “UFOs” “the government” has been “shooting out of the sky” recently) might just be another stab at innovative advertising from U2’s marketing team. They cannot keep getting away with this!
Loser: Propriety
When it was finally, finally time to watch Rihanna take the stage and find out which hits she’d be performing at the Super Bowl, there was just one problem left to solve: ourselves. While the battle between Kansas City and Philadelphia briefly ceased, a new war erupted in homes across America: the one between general civility and our own minds. You are never, ever supposed to ask whether a woman is pregnant just because there are a few suggestions that she might be. Rihanna had not announced that she was expecting a second child before the Super Bowl; she did not come onstage and sing, “Bitch gonna have a baby” to the tune of “Bitch Better Have My Money.” But after three minutes of nothing but walk choreo (powerful walk choreo, but entirely ankle driven nonetheless) and exaggerated belly rubs timed to lyrics like “When you hold me, I’m alive,” group chats and living rooms finally erupted with questions. We weren’t supposed to ask, but we did ask, and our uncouth assumptions were rewarded minutes later, when a representative for Rihanna confirmed that she is expecting another child with rapper A$AP Rocky. Which means …
Winner: Rihanna Just Performed the Super Bowl Halftime Show Pregnant
Rihanna’s halftime show was her return to the stage after years away; it was expected, ideally, to be her return to making new music; we felt sure it would be her musical return to us, her far-from-patient fans …
And as Rihanna does, she managed to subvert all those expectations by sending a simple message from 100 feet in the air: Chill the fuck out, y’all, and just have a good time. Blessed, unbothered, and with an abundance of charisma so overwhelming that she merely need look into the camera or walk down a runway to evoke the right mood, Rihanna gave us a double-decker halftime show with nonstop vocals, visuals, and vibes. She opened with “Bitch Better Have My Money,” trolled us a little with “All of the Lights,” and closed with “Diamonds” while quite literally suspended in the night sky. She didn’t announce an album because she didn’t have to. She didn’t sing all of her no. 1 hits because there literally would never be enough time for that. She fixed her makeup with a compact from her billion-dollar brand because it’s always worth reminding us that she’s a businesswoman in addition to a beloved pop star. Super Bowl performances are often the most, but they are rarely cool—so Rihanna came onstage and did what she does best: She made a hit. Going into Super Bowl LVII, some people legitimately thought Rihanna would bring Tom Holland onstage; a few feared Kanye. Personally, I hoped for Shy Ronnie. In the end, Rihanna simply said, “Here, have your little Super Bowl halftime show. It’s got the only two things you ever needed: me and my catalog.”
