by Courtney Wight '26 on February 27, 2026
Opinion - Society
Over recent years, it feels like wherever you go, you are constantly shown advertisements. While I always hated ads growing up, at least they used to advertise fun new products for me to beg my parents to buy, or new movies and shows to watch. However, specifically after the last Super Bowl, advertisements are no longer pushing products I want to see.
My roommates and I watched the whole Super Bowl and instead of the ads being my favorite part, they were an extreme let down. Many of the advertisements promoted products with artificial intelligence related advancements or services. These advertisements should not come as a shock since AI development has been at the forefront of advertisements for a while now, yet it feels like everywhere I go, all I see is new AI developments or products being sold.
While it may have been naive to think for one night I might be rewarded with fun commercials again, somehow I was able to go through the whole Super Bowl without a Doritos commercial! Instead of seeing fun ads, I was watching ones that I had already seen since they were pre-released, or boring ones promoting products I’m not invested in.
Super Bowl ads are supposed to consist of celebrities randomly paired together promoting something that has nothing to do with them. For example, the State Farm commercial featured their signature man, Jake from State Farm, but for some reason there was a team up of Bon Jovi, Jason Momoa, Hailee Steinfeld, and even KATSEYE. This is exactly what I want from a Super Bowl commercial: simple, pure confusion as to how this company got these celebrities to agree to the concept, and excitement at the anticipation of who else might show up.
Another commercial that did a great job at this was Good Will Dunkin. Seeing Jason Alexander as George Costanza on my television was a gift. The excitement I felt seeing Ted Danson emerge to stand behind the counter and the shock from seeing Tom Brady in that terrible wig is exactly what I want to see from a Super Bowl commercial.
Some companies did stick to the tradition of the Super Bowl commercial and delivered what I wanted to see, but the majority felt like a miss. One of the most shocking commercials was the Ring doorbell commercial. The idea that Ring could secretly utilize their customer’s cameras to deploy AI surveillance technology should be considered an insane invasion of privacy to everyone. Additionally, attempting to brand it as a cute puppy getting lost from home is ludicrous. Instead of feeling a sense of fun and whimsy, this commercial left me with a sinking feeling that we are entering a surveillance state without even knowing it.
Super Bowl commercials used to be a huge deal, but in the past couple years, I’ve felt the excitement fade away. The commercials this year just left me unsatisfied. I remember the good ole’ days of the One Direction Pepsi commercial! Super Bowl commercials used to be talked about for months after the game and become integral pieces of pop culture. While this year had a few shining stars, overall, the advertisements left me wanting more or feeling downright disgusted at what I had just seen.