Good lord, right-wingers, get a grip. It’s unhealthy to expend this much energy being sad about a Super Bowl halftime performer.
Yes, they’re still freaking out about Bad Bunny. So much so that they’ve done the most hilariously impotent lib-coded thing imaginable: created a Change.org petition.
“The Super Bowl halftime show should unite our country, honor American culture, and remain family-friendly, not be turned into a political stunt. Bad Bunny represents none of these values; his drag performances and style are the opposite of what families expect on football’s biggest stage,” the petition reads.
Have any of these people seen a Super Bowl halftime show in the last 25 years? We’ve had the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Usher, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Shakira, Beyoncé, and Prince. In fact, you have to go back to 2003 to find a country artist, and that was Shania Twain, who has at least dabbled in pop music.
You’ll note that conservatives are not suggesting that Twain return—because she loves drag and nonbinary and trans artists.
The anger over the Puerto Rican rapper is really just straight-up racism thinly—very thinly—disguised as some vague yearning for America’s lost glory. But really, the right is just furious that it might have to hear Spanish songs. And how dare conservatives be forced to watch a foreign performer—oh, wait … they keep forgetting that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory.
And the signers of this petition really have no qualms whatsoever about posting the most bigoted comments.
“The Super Bowl used to feel like America — strong, grounded, united. Now it feels like we’re forgetting the people who built that unity with their bare hands. This isn’t about music. It’s about memory. About a country that once stood tall, proud, and grateful — and the fear that we might not anymore,” one comment said.
“The people who built that unity with their bare hands”? What does that even mean?
Another signer wrote, “American sports speak the language we understand.”
Okay, that one is both racist and incoherent.
Or how about, “Most Americans speak English… no race hate intended but it’s the truth. I don’t even really know who he is. Bring country music back to football! Stop listening to Jay z all the dang time.”
You know that any time you see a qualifier like “no race hate intended,” what follows is guaranteed to be racist as fuck.
“George Strait is a much better choice than that thing that has no idea if he wants to be a guy or a chick,” someone else wrote.
Sure, let’s throw some homophobia into the mix!
The only reason conservatives are fixated on Strait in particular is that President Donald Trump named him a Kennedy Center honoree earlier this year. There isn’t some organic groundswell of demand going on here.
Also, it’s just embarrassing to stack up Strait’s numbers against Bad Bunny. In 2024, Bad Bunny’s songs were streamed 11.5 billion times. He was also the most played artist on Spotify from 2020 to 2022, and he’s the No. 1 Latin artist on Billboard’s recap of the last 25 years. And his latest album, “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” hit No. 1 earlier this year.
To be fair, the 73-year-old Strait does have a greatest hits album still kicking around the Billboard 200 … at number 119.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, definitely a man with a keen grasp of modern culture, thinks Lee Greenwood should play the Super Bowl. Yes, the man who has literally only one song everyone knows, “God Bless the USA,” which came out in 1984. The dude is 82 years old—no one is clamoring for Greenwood.
But there’s something else going on here besides just the abject racism. Conservatives are incensed that they can’t capture the culture. They control all three branches of government and they’re terrorizing the country, but they still can’t force us to listen to whatever fifth-rate has-been who’s attached themselves to Trump.
The NFL isn’t going to get rid of Bad Bunny, especially not because of a petition that’s earned a paltry 30,000 signatures.
As a point of comparison that would certainly infuriate the signers of this petition, the Justice for George Floyd petition received 19 million signatures, a petition to designate the KKK a terrorist organization got more than 3 million, and a petition to cancel student debt got 800,000. Hell, even a petition to make actor LeVar Burton the host of “Jeopardy” netted 296,000 signatures.
Conservatives will have to content themselves with the Turning Point USA alternate halftime show, which now has a website but no performers. Lara Trump has stepped forward and offered to perform, despite literally never being asked. She’s sure to be a huge draw, what with her most recent single getting about 2,800 streams on Spotify.
If fortune smiles on us, perhaps Turning Point will get Creed to headline, as they’ve threatened. Then we could hope for a repeat of his 2001 halftime show, a truly unhinged experience complete with shirtless men on aerial silks and the worst lip syncing you’ve ever seen.
The idea of Creed as the family-friendly alternative to Bad Bunny is especially comical. The band’s lead singer, Scott Stapp … okay, we’re gonna need a list here:
-
He started a fistfight with members of the band 311.
-
He made a sex tape with Kid Rock and four women, for which he had to sue to prevent it from being sold. But it’s okay because, for Christians like Stapp, getting blow jobs from groupies isn’t actually sex.
-
He got arrested for public intoxication roughly 24 hours after getting married.
-
He was charged with felony domestic assault, which was later dropped to a misdemeanor.
-
He jumped off of a hotel balcony in Miami during a drug binge, falling 40 feet and breaking his skull, hip, and nose.
Now that’s family-friendly, right?
In contrast, literally the only dirt you can dig up on Bad Bunny is that his ex-girlfriend sued him in 2023 for including a recording of her saying, “Bad Bunny, baby,” on two songs, for which she demanded $40 million.
There’s nothing that right-wingers can do to change the fact that Bad Bunny is going to perform at the Super Bowl. He’s going to sing in Spanish. He might wear a dress. He might kiss a dude. But no matter what he does, he will be reflective of the United States—a polyglot country of immigrants and a glorious mashup of cultures.
George Strait could never.
Good lord, right-wingers, get a grip. It’s unhealthy to expend this much energy being sad about a Super Bowl halftime performer.
Yes, they’re still freaking out about Bad Bunny. So much so that they’ve done the most hilariously impotent lib-coded thing imaginable: created a Change.org petition.
“The Super Bowl halftime show should unite our country, honor American culture, and remain family-friendly, not be turned into a political stunt. Bad Bunny represents none of these values; his drag performances and style are the opposite of what families expect on football’s biggest stage,” the petition reads.
Bad Bunny will be performing at the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show.
Have any of these people seen a Super Bowl halftime show in the last 25 years? We’ve had the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Usher, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Shakira, Beyoncé, and Prince. In fact, you have to go back to 2003 to find a country artist, and that was Shania Twain, who has at least dabbled in pop music.
You’ll note that conservatives are not suggesting that Twain return—because she loves drag and nonbinary and trans artists.
The anger over the Puerto Rican rapper is really just straight-up racism thinly—very thinly—disguised as some vague yearning for America’s lost glory. But really, the right is just furious that it might have to hear Spanish songs. And how dare conservatives be forced to watch a foreign performer—oh, wait … they keep forgetting that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory.
And the signers of this petition really have no qualms whatsoever about posting the most bigoted comments.
“The Super Bowl used to feel like America — strong, grounded, united. Now it feels like we’re forgetting the people who built that unity with their bare hands. This isn’t about music. It’s about memory. About a country that once stood tall, proud, and grateful — and the fear that we might not anymore,” one comment said.
“The people who built that unity with their bare hands”? What does that even mean?
Another signer wrote, “American sports speak the language we understand.”
Okay, that one is both racist and incoherent.
Or how about, “Most Americans speak English… no race hate intended but it’s the truth. I don’t even really know who he is. Bring country music back to football! Stop listening to Jay z all the dang time.”
You know that any time you see a qualifier like “no race hate intended,” what follows is guaranteed to be racist as fuck.
“George Strait is a much better choice than that thing that has no idea if he wants to be a guy or a chick,” someone else wrote.
Sure, let’s throw some homophobia into the mix!
The only reason conservatives are fixated on Strait in particular is that President Donald Trump named him a Kennedy Center honoree earlier this year. There isn’t some organic groundswell of demand going on here.
Usher performs during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2024.
Also, it’s just embarrassing to stack up Strait’s numbers against Bad Bunny. In 2024, Bad Bunny’s songs were streamed 11.5 billion times. He was also the most played artist on Spotify from 2020 to 2022, and he’s the No. 1 Latin artist on Billboard’s recap of the last 25 years. And his latest album, “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” hit No. 1 earlier this year.
To be fair, the 73-year-old Strait does have a greatest hits album still kicking around the Billboard 200 … at number 119.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, definitely a man with a keen grasp of modern culture, thinks Lee Greenwood should play the Super Bowl. Yes, the man who has literally only one song everyone knows, “God Bless the USA,” which came out in 1984. The dude is 82 years old—no one is clamoring for Greenwood.
But there’s something else going on here besides just the abject racism. Conservatives are incensed that they can’t capture the culture. They control all three branches of government and they’re terrorizing the country, but they still can’t force us to listen to whatever fifth-rate has-been who’s attached themselves to Trump.
The NFL isn’t going to get rid of Bad Bunny, especially not because of a petition that’s earned a paltry 30,000 signatures.
As a point of comparison that would certainly infuriate the signers of this petition, the Justice for George Floyd petition received 19 million signatures, a petition to designate the KKK a terrorist organization got more than 3 million, and a petition to cancel student debt got 800,000. Hell, even a petition to make actor LeVar Burton the host of “Jeopardy” netted 296,000 signatures.
Conservatives will have to content themselves with the Turning Point USA alternate halftime show, which now has a website but no performers. Lara Trump has stepped forward and offered to perform, despite literally never being asked. She’s sure to be a huge draw, what with her most recent single getting about 2,800 streams on Spotify.
If fortune smiles on us, perhaps Turning Point will get Creed to headline, as they’ve threatened. Then we could hope for a repeat of his 2001 halftime show, a truly unhinged experience complete with shirtless men on aerial silks and the worst lip syncing you’ve ever seen.
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YouTube Video
The idea of Creed as the family-friendly alternative to Bad Bunny is especially comical. The band’s lead singer, Scott Stapp … okay, we’re gonna need a list here:
He started a fistfight with members of the band 311.
He made a sex tape with Kid Rock and four women, for which he had to sue to prevent it from being sold. But it’s okay because, for Christians like Stapp, getting blow jobs from groupies isn’t actually sex.
He got arrested for public intoxication roughly 24 hours after getting married.
He was charged with felony domestic assault, which was later dropped to a misdemeanor.
He jumped off of a hotel balcony in Miami during a drug binge, falling 40 feet and breaking his skull, hip, and nose.
Now that’s family-friendly, right?
In contrast, literally the only dirt you can dig up on Bad Bunny is that his ex-girlfriend sued him in 2023 for including a recording of her saying, “Bad Bunny, baby,” on two songs, for which she demanded $40 million.
There’s nothing that right-wingers can do to change the fact that Bad Bunny is going to perform at the Super Bowl. He’s going to sing in Spanish. He might wear a dress. He might kiss a dude. But no matter what he does, he will be reflective of the United States—a polyglot country of immigrants and a glorious mashup of cultures.
George Strait could never.
