Super Bowl 2023 Ads That Actually Made Us Buy Something – Looper Staff Confessions

I friggin’ hate Sam Adams. And yet, I have to admit I have a soft spot for Your Cousin from Boston (Gregory Hoyt). For my friends out here in Wisconsin, where I’ve lived for the past seven years, Your Cousin from Boston is a character. For me, he’s my actual cousin, aunt (pronounced AHnt, not ANT), uncle, parents, other cousins, best friend, best friend’s mom, and sister Diana (pronounced [censored]). And these ads remind me of the things I’ve been missing out on since leaving home, like: fighting with said sister over the clicka and/or sofa, bangin’ a uey before the rotary, gambling with ‘the T,’ automatically assuming someone wants to “start ****” with me, shouting “Yankees Suck” at hockey and basketball games and in the shower, and being wholly incapable of using an indoor voice, sincere tone, or turn signal.

Furthamaw, they’re some of the few on-screen representations of an accent I grew up hearing and speaking with, before The Establishment ground whole parts of it out of me, that aren’t: A, actually some equally inaccurate version of Brooklyn accent; B, actually some sad imitation of a Kennedy accent (which is its own thing); or C, delivered by a Wahlberg or a Mattfleck. I know the industry gets plenty of accents wrong, but even the best actors get tripped up by the chaos that is the “Boston” accent. No one says “caw,” Hollywood. It’s cah, AWviously, and not AHviously, and definitely not BAH-stin (who started this ****??), and while we’re on the subject, please go ahead and throw that ‘R’ back on the end of that word if the next word starts with a vowel, thanks.

So this year, in honor of the me who for so long pronounced “car keys” and “khakis” identically, I grabbed some Sam at the packie. Unfortunately, for all its attempts to come off as brighter, more refined, and more decent than it actually is, it still doesn’t come close to being any of these things. And ya know what? I can relate. (Irrigahdliss, I still friggin’ hate it).