https://x.com/washingtonpost/status/2020856563385106692
Maybe this is why the Washington Post is in serious trouble. If they think celebrating promiscuous sex is "wholesome" and "traditional family values", they should be out of business.
I can totally see why the people bitching about some decades old Kid Rock lyrics were so excited for Bad Bunny to perform. Because clearly his lyrical content is much more wholesome and uplifting than Kid Rock. I guess singing in Spanish lets you get away with all sorts of things.
I'm not advocating for Kid Rock here. I find much of his lyrical content problematic was well. I am pointing out more hypocrisy on the part of the ASPL.
6 comments:
I have--never--in--my--life heard such trash. What sort of evil, perverted people write this stuff, let alone listen to it?!?!? Why was this at a half-time show!?!?!
I don't watch sports so I guess I'm naive. But if people who watch sports condoned this putrid garbage without complaining, then they become complicit.
There is plenty of this trash out there. If you can stomach it there is a great video of Gilbert Gottfried doing a dramatic reading of WAP, ( a huge hit a few years ago) and of a comedian doing a comparison between WAP and Baby, It's Cold Outside to point out liberal hypocrisy. Given the fact that this moral exemplar had some of the highest streaming numbers of 2025, there are clearly plenty of people who want this garbage. Of course it's in Spanish, so no many people have no idea of what they are listening to. He was there because he's hugely popular globally. (on a tangent, I'm not sure I believe this claim)
It will be interesting to see the ratings for the halftime show to see how many people did bail.
To be fair, we live in a fallen world full of sinful people and it shouldn't be a surprise when sinful people behave like sinful people. There is clearly plenty of this garbage all over.
My wife heard a report that 6 million tuned in to the TPUSA alternative. There was a higher number cited, but she wasn't clear about what that referenced.
With any event like this they measure streams or devices not people. So any measurement doesn’t take groups watching one source into the number.
I think it was successful enough that we’ll likely see another. It’d be nice to see some better entertainers though.
But they showed that it’s feasible.
My sister told me that Kid Rock's lyrics in his song weren't all the wholesome, although nothing like "Bunny";
But the other halftime show, the Turning Point USA event with Kid Rock, that’s where the alarm should’ve gone off. Because this is what was sung on that stage:
“The midnight glancers and the topless dancers,
The Northern Lights and the Southern Comfort
And it don’t even matter if their veins are punctured
All the crackheads, the critics, the cynics
And all my heroes in the Methadone clinics”
And then, the name of Jesus is mentioned at the end.
I'd argue that the TPUSA show was less unwholesome than the SB. Having said that, it seems as though the intent was to show that Kid Rock had undergone a transformation. That they used the first song to show where he was, and the second to show where he ended up. Which is in interesting concept.
Without making a guess and his spiritual condition, he unequivocally pointed people to Jesus (as did Jellyroll at the Grammys). Christianity, it seems, is substantially about transformation from sinner to saint, and when people publicly talk about that transformation it seems like a net positive.
It's difficult for me to evaluate the TPUSA show on a depravity scale, while acknowledging that it wasn't as clean as it could have been. As much as I personally would have liked it, I'm not sure that an alternative show filled entirely with Christian artists would have been a big draw. It also would have generated it's own type of controversy.
Where I think we can find some value is in the proof of concept. TPUSA booked a few artists who are not anywhere close to as popular as rabbit boy, and managed to attract enough viewers that advertisers and the NFL likely paid attention. I absolutely think that they demonstrated enough that we'll see this again next year. If they can demonstrate the audience numbers they should be able to attract better performers, more advertisers, and better TV partners.
The question they need to answer is exactly how wholesome is wholesome. The number of artists who would associate themselves with TPUSA is relatively small, which poses a problem.
Could they book Nugent? More than likely, but Ted isn't exactly wholesome either. Skynerd seems like a possibility, but they need to balance that with younger/more currently popular performers. They have some difficult decisions to make about next year, but I think that they might be on to something. Ultimately they'll need to decide whether or not the goal is to be more wholesome than the SB, if it's about intentionally pointing people to Jesus, or if they need to drop the wholesome branding in favor of something that won't raise these kinds of issues.
FWIW, I think that they should release a statement which says that they are happy with how the event went, include the numbers, and that they are starting to plan for next years show. Then they should keep their preparations quiet until they are ready to make the final announcement. No expectations, no teases about performers who might not show, just focus on being bigger and better next year.
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