Bill Maher was once a prominent voice in politics and pop culture, but these days, he seems to be the talking head your Boomer parents think you might relate to. In between jokes about transgender people and claims that “woke” culture is ruining the country, he smokes weed. In the latest episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, he spent a considerable amount of time complaining about watching football on streaming services, coinciding with Super Bowl LIX. He began by remarking how “it’s probably one of the last ones to be shown on broadcast TV,” and the conversation only became more Boomer from there.
Maher’s rant showcased all the painfully unfunny, out-of-touch elements one might expect, including his assertion that the inefficiency of streaming services is to blame for his inability to navigate them. “What’s so bad about streaming football, you ask?” he questions. “Well, for one, I used to be able to switch between two games in just a second by hitting previous on the remote. But on YouTube TV, I have to go back to the homepage, go to sports, go to NFL, and scroll across to find the second game I want to check on, all while waiting for the circle-y thing to calm down. I tell ya, it’s easier to switch between sexes in America than it is to switch between football games.”
Of course, there had to be complaints about commercials, paired with a decidedly outdated joke. “Unlike old TV, where I might have DVR’d the game to watch later and zip through the commercials, streaming purposefully makes it so you can’t do that,” Maher lamented. “They don’t let you see what you’re fast-forwarding through. There’s no way to tell where the commercials end and the action resumes. The start of the third quarter is harder to find than the G-spot.” He then pivoted to a discussion on “reverse improvement” and enshittification, alongside the ineffectiveness of most tech CEOs and their world plans, leading to a much more valid conversation.
There are trade-offs with the increase of NFL and college football programming on streaming services. Yet, it’s likely no surprise that similar complaints arose when football games initially aired on cable channels. The world continues to turn, and people will always grumble about adapting to new ways of doing old things. This year, the Super Bowl will be available to stream for free on Tubi. It will be entertaining to see how “The Olds” find a way to complain about that.
