Oh No, Dolly: The Most Disappointing Super Bowl Ads This Year
Let's maybe not celebrate the gig economy too hard.
Super Bowl commercials are a very big deal. Companies spend a lot of money on them, and there are people who get very excited about them and think they are "the best part" of the Super Bowl, although I don't think I've ever actually met one of those people in real life. As far as I am concerned, there is only one good commercial, and it is this one .
However, some of the ads that aired yesterday featured some celebrity cameos that felt, frankly, a little disappointing.
The gig economy is a problem. It's a problem that people aren't making enough to survive at regular, full time jobs and that they need a "side hustle." It's a problem that this allows sketchy multi-level marketing companies to prey on half the people we went to high school with. It's a problem that these companies are not paying these people enough money, or that food delivery services gouge the small local restaurants they deliver from and do a lot of other nasty things. It's a problem that boycotting them isn't always even an option because boycotting them also means that the people need that extra cash don't get it and — especially during a pandemic, when you can't eat indoors — there aren't a whole lot of options for supporting local restaurants if one doesn't have a car. It's one of those "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" binds.
Probably there were more bad commercials than that, but I didn't actually watch the Super Bowl so I only know about the ones people were complaining about on Twitter.
It's hard to make ethical choices under capitalism, but it shouldn't have to be this hard. If we had better labor protections, if people were at least getting paid fairly, even if we just had better social safety nets in place and could at least ensure that regardless of how people are employed they could have basic things like food, shelter, healthcare and childcare, we could feel like we weren't actively hurting anyone by making those choices. In the meantime, people who are already super rich have more ability to make those choices than the rest of us do, so it would be really cool if they did not actively champion them.
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Bruce Springsteen's ad was pulled after The Boos was pulled over for a DUI. However, that isn't the whole story. Bruce stopped by some fans and one of the fans gave him a shot of tequila and then he left. But, some of cops saw him do the shot and pulled him over for the "DUI". His BA level was .02.
Screw a bunch of celebrities who will pimp themselves out for predatory companies, when said celebrities have more money than Midas in the first place.