Back in November, David Green of Hobby Lobby fame/infamy announced in an interview with Glenn Beck that he’s one of the primary financial backers of He Gets Us – the Evangelical non-profit that – as opposed to giving money to the poor or meek – is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to re-brand Jesus for today’s modern age, something I’m sure ancient Jesus would have totally been cool with.
As a result, I guess that means the Green family is also behind one of the weirdest Super Bowl commercials to air on Sunday night – you know, the one that encouraged people watching a football game to live a more child-like life, and apparently stand on your friends back to pee in those moments you can’t reach a urinal.
Check this out:
Yeah, that’s weird and insanely unsanitary. Couldn’t they have used one of the ten million other licensable photos of kids being kids that didn’t involve one of them going to the bathroom?
To be clear, I don’t think there’s anything that wrong with the photo. If He Gets Us wants to use a voyeuristic photo of children using teamwork in the bathroom so that one kid can properly relieve himself in a man’s toilet in an ad campaign, I guess go for it.
Surprisingly, though, the people on the right – you know, like the Hobby Lobby people – who are obsessed with where and how kids use the bathroom were surprisingly quiet about the ad.
Ryan Walters didn’t once run to his SUV to demand an investigation to determine where the photo was taken, and issue an order prohibiting boys from using other boys as urinal footstools.
According to the BBC, the He Gets Us ads managed to piss off both the left and the right.
Although Hobby Lobby… errr… He Gets Us claims the ads are supposed to bring us all together in the name of Jesus, it appears they’re having the opposite effect. Which maybe was the plan?
In response to questions, He Gets Us didn't respond directly to the critics but instead pointed out that the campaign was successful in attracting attention, citing two marketing firms which rated the campaign as among the most-talked-about Super Bowl ads online.
Along with all the tweets, Google data showed a big spike in searches for the campaign during the game.
"The goal is that the two commercials will not only inspire those who may be sceptical of Christianity to ask questions and learn more about Jesus, but also encourage Christians to live out their faith even better and exhibit the same confounding love and forgiveness Jesus modelled," said He Gets Us spokesman Jason Vanderground.
Anyway, I guess if you want to watch all the ads for either inspiration or irritational purposes, you can go to the He Gets Us YouTube page.
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