The NFL's 52nd Super Bowl was memorable in many ways. For one, the Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 on the Rams' home turf, but the game itself wasn't always the main focus on social media. The memes were all about this year's nostalgia-packed halftime show, 50 Cent hanging upside-down, Meta's super weird Super Bowl commercial, and some added generational gatekeeping for good measure. We've collected all of the most notable reactions and memes about Super Bowl LVI.
To the delight of Gen Xers and Millennials alike, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, and Mary J. Blige performed on a unique stage that paid tribute to legendary landmarks of South Los Angeles, like Compton's iconic dance club Eve After Dark. As soon as the show started, fans immediately live-tweeted and meme'd their reactions.
In reference to his 2003 hit music video for “In Da Club," 50 cent entered the stage upside-down, which inspired an explosion of memes.
When the Queen of Hip-Hop herself concluded her epic performance of “Family Affair” by dramatically lying down on stage, Twitter took the opportunity to meme the gesture. “Mary J. Blige laying on the floor just might be the most relatable moment in #SuperBowl history!” Said @SocialWorkItOut.
In some videos, you can hear the audience rapping along with Eminem as he performed “Lose Yourself.” There's even a clip of Justin Bieber completely losing it in excitement. At the end of the song, Eminem took a knee (seemingly in a show of solidarity with Colin Kaepernick) as Dr. Dre hopped on the piano. “Imma be real real honest" tweeted @questlove about the moment, "I was so shocked Dr Dre knew his way around a piano—I totally missed Em kneeling."
The two culinary celebrities and connoisseurs of flavor posed together for an iconic photo. But someone on Twitter pointed out Stewart's phone. Was she caught in 4k googling Guy Fieri?
While much of the internet was buzzing about the game, fans of a different sort were more interested in the showdown between Maddy and Cassie on the latest episode of Euphoria.
What was up with that insane Meta commercial? If you didn't catch it, basically, a singing animatronic dog gets thrown in a dumpster after retiring from his rock band. The washed-up dog lives a very depressing life until one day, he puts on a VR headset, enters the Metaverse, and lives happily ever after. @david_j_roth summarized it perfectly in a scathing tweet: “Everything you loved, everything you have, will be taken from you, and there is nothing you can do about it. You will lose all of it. But with these goggles, you can enjoy a fake version of the world you remembered, probably while all alone. We're Meta."
Was the epic halftime show for elder Millennials or Gen Xers? There were plenty of gatekeepers on Twitter arguing on either side.