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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2815 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 6, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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You know what? The halftime show was a lot of fun. Bad Bunny did a great job and as far as I can tell the message was definitely much more one of unity than one of criticism, contrary to the Trumpist worries. His only lines in English? God Bless America (although with the slightly subversive implication that America = 'the Americas' more broadly). The dancing was great (Indian - Hispanic unity there, white America really doesn't get/value dancing atm), the visuals were very varied and fun to look at, although I personally can understand a decent amount of Spanish I think there was probably enough going on that non-speakers would probably still enjoy?

I like Bad Bunny as a halftime show but that's mostly because the field of 'music sufficiently popular with the average american to be a halftime show' is a pretty low bar for me these days. Like, we're never getting a halftime show that's all Sabaton singing about the US in WW2, or any of the Christian Rock bands I don't mind (The most mainstream/patriotic options on my playlist). So, Bad Bunny is... Fine? Don't love his lyrics, but the beat's good and the show was aight. No complaints.

My girlfriend watches the halftime show every year – not the Super Bowl, she just likes the halftime shows. I was half-watching it, and while reggaeton (or anything reggaeton-adjacent) is not really my cup of tea, I did feel like it's more appropriate for this context than Kendrick Lamar, purely for being more overtly "party" music composed with dancing in mind. Bad Bunny, with whose music I was erstwhile unfamiliar, is an undeniably talented performer.

Favourite take so far is from Ryan Long:

If I was running for president of a Latin country my platform would be to bring the people a second drum beat

Legitimately: why is that every Spanish-speaking country is so obsessed with the reggaeton drum pattern? I went to Cuba for a week and it was inescapable. My brother went to Spain several years ago and came back saying the same thing, that Spanish people like music with exactly one rhythmic pattern. I went to a rave during Covid and there was a DJ playing techno, but all of the Mexicans in attendance simply refused to dance until another DJ took over and began playing reggaeton.

And the weirdest thing is that every other non-Anglophone culture is starting to follow their example. In the last three months I've been to a wedding for a Turkish couple and a Syrian birthday: the soundtracks were Turkish reggaeton and Arabic reggaeton, respectively. What is it about those four notes that inspires such a hypnotic cross-cultural fixation?

Don't forget Norwegian Reggaeton!

I had fun making fun of it with the people in the room. One of them was a fluent Spanish speaker and said he couldn't understand most of it. The show was competing with 6 screaming kids volume wise, so it might have been hard to understand English lyrics too.

I can sort of count in Spanish and know only a couple of other words. It was boring to listen to, and the screaming kids sounded better.

The dancing I found boring, because there is much better amateur stuff on YouTube. And the camera angles weren't really doing the dancing any favors, moving around way too much and way too quickly.

Overall it was good to have something other than AI commercials to make fun of. Next year they can save money and get a local mariachi band to perform.

I enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed all the recent halftime shows, which is to say, not at all. I liked the music slightly more than the mumbled hip hop we've gotten lately, but the thing being in Spanish without even subtitles really did feel like a fuck you.

but the thing being in Spanish without even subtitles really did feel like a fuck you.

Felt exactly the same way, until I saw some of the translated lyrics on X and quickly realized why they wouldn't be on network television

If these are the lyrics then wow you weren't kidding. That's some serious degeneracy.

I watched the first few minutes and my main thought was "Who the fuck OKed a set that blocks the audience that paid for a ticket to the Superbowl from seeing anything?"

My second thought was "Yeah, this is lame garbage for ratchet latina chicks" (fun fact: unlike most Americans I knew who he was years ago because the most ratchet employee I've ever had talked about him while doing a terrible job lying about why she was calling out because she went clubbing on a Wednesday).

In more important news, I seasoned with my heart and the wings came out extra spicy. When I pick my son up from his SB party, I'm going to have to try some reverse psychology to get him to eat any.

That's fair - but also definitely the trend in the last few years to make the show more TV-friendly than stadium-friendly. I speculate some of that is actually Apple TV's influence, but honestly the half-time show really IS for the TV audience, not the people in the stadium.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to start listening to Bad Bunny, but to me the point is more just something fun to look at and talk about in between the ads

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