Land of the offended. Home of the outraged.

I watched yesterday’s sports match at a sports bar. Specifically in a reserved seat at the bar in front of a gigantic OLED screen. I’m in Vegas which means that a good portion of the seats at the bar have a video screen in front of them where patrons can gamble. My seat at the bar did not have a video poker machine installed but the steel surface was already punched to accept such a device for future expansion. Which is why I specifically chose to reserve the seat. Not because I don’t like to play video poker and such but not for five hours and the screen leaves very little room for trying to eat food.

To my right was a gentleman who started imbibing well before I arrived just minutes before all of the ceremonies made for the benefit of creating more time for commercials. He was quiet but kind and also wearing a New England jersey despite being from Buffalo, New York. Our ongoing conversation was made of brief comments about the game as we were cheering for opposite teams and the Rocket Scientist was sitting to my left, and her company is superior to anyone else on the planet. 

Near the half way point of the game, I told my tipsy Patriots fan that hopefully his team will find inspiration in the locker room. Either from a moving, heartfelt pep talk from the coach or the big halftime show. He started to nod but flinched when I mentioned the show. Shaking his head right to left while he let out a “chyah” noise.

When said show began he turned away from the screen and retreated his attention by scrolling through something on his phone. In between key moments of the show my bar neighbor would look behind him and mutter, “chyah, nobody’s watching” which was followed by enormous cheers and applause which suggested otherwise. This happened a few times and I started to wonder if he was devoid of any powers of observation. Meanwhile, he kept looking at his phone and shaking his head to make it clear he did not approve while my wife joined the majority of the crowd doing what we were all there to do—have a good time. But the tension—while small—continued to linger until the end.

Whereas we started the evening friendly rivals now there was something more to set us apart, and nothing good. Conservative disgust and progressive support are just two sides of the same stupid coin that has zero value in the future. I like how Colby Hall said it in It Was Just a Halftime Show. The Meltdown Reveals How Dumb We’ve Become.

The conservative backlash wasn’t really about music. It was about discomfort with change and the refusal to admit that not everything is designed to feel familiar anymore. The progressive overpraise wasn’t really about art either. It was about signaling moral alignment and extracting symbolic meaning from something engineered to be disposable. Both reactions inflated the significance of a spectacle precisely because triviality does not feed engagement.

That’s the part worth lingering on. We now live in an ecosystem where boredom is intolerable and neutrality is suspicious. Everything has to be a fight. Every cultural artifact must be processed through a partisan lens or it feels wasted. A halftime show cannot just exist. It has to offend, affirm, threaten, or redeem.

Joe Scarborough proved Hall's point by calling out pastor Franklin Graham's praise for Turning Point USA's "family-friendly" alternative halftime show featuring Kid Rock. Graham complained Bad Bunny’s music was too "sexualized" while championing a musician who sings about having sex with underage girls.

Near the end of the game as Seahawks was clearly going to win a loud guy from somewhere behind us bellowed his support. Without looking I leaned to my right and said “I think he’s the mayor of Seattle.” He replied with a bit of a chuckle and, also without looking, said “he must be black.” Since he wasn’t wearing a white pillowcase over his head it was hard to tell if this comment was real or just tacked onto his performative disgust from earlier. In either case it wasn’t warranted and in no way funny. Just another stupid thing said by an idiot.

I’m not sure what Americans are supposed to be celebrating this year other than another mostly meaningless time-based milestone. Until our collective performative bullshit goes away we’re not “one nation, undivided” but quite the opposite. We’re not a country but a reality show with loyalty programs. We don’t have Freedom of Speech but instead a prison of soundbites. We don't practice Freedom of Religion—we practice hypocritical judgment. We love to flaunt bespoke values and moral victories built on our country’s selective history which is just as real as our president’s skin tone.

Not wanting to end on that particular visual, let’s sing this revision of the first stanza of the National Anthem. Uh, in no particular key at all. Bonus points for using a kazoo.

Oh say can you see by the television's glowing light,
What so loudly we rage at the halftime show's streaming?
Whose broad swipes and bright screens through the performative fight,
O'er the comments we scroll, always angrily screaming?
And the outrage we share, the hot takes everywhere,
Gave proof through the night that our team was still there;
Oh say does that star-spangled banner still wave,
O'er the land of live TV and the home of the staged?

 God bless the Divided Rage of America.