The New Sprite Commercial is the Scariest Super Bowl Ad Ever

Usually Coca-Cola has a flare for using the Super Bowl to the company's advantage. Their Super Bowl ads are sweet, provocative, touching, and sometimes downright hilarious.

Which makes me wonder what, exactly, they were thinking with this year's Super Bowl ad for Sprite.

The company has released three new ads for Super Bowl viewers' entertainment, two featuring the classic flavor of Coke, and one featuring the lemon-lime flavored Sprite. The former fit well with the traditional cannon of Coca-Cola ads that suggest the world is better with Coke; nay, the world is happier, no matter what the circumstances, with Coke. Then there's the Sprite ad that suggests while Coca-Cola Classic makes the world a happy place, Sprite is gonna mess ... you ... up.

The new Sprite ad features a rapper in the studio stepping away from the microphone because he's "just not feeling it." He takes a sip of Sprite ... and that's where the freak out happens. As a slight smile spreads over his face, the rapper essentially splits apart, revealing not bones, blood, and organs but spinning vinyl, speakers, and other musical equipment that have apparently invaded the man's body, with a flow of what I can only assume is supposed to be Sprite pouring over everything. That Sprite stream eventually makes its way to where the man's heart should be, where it erupts from the soulless sap like Old Faithful. The rapper is then put back together, at which point he starts spitting a rap featuring the lines, "Last name Ever, first name Greatest."

I assume he's talking about the Sprite with which he is now possessed.

So, I'm sure Sprite was attempting to spout something harmless about the caffeine free bubbly drink, but that's not exactly the message that came across. Instead, we're presented with an ad that screams, "Stop fearing the robot apocalypse and start worrying about what Sprite has planned for your unsuspecting body." Besides the fact that, were such a living stream of soda to pour over your electronic-equipment overrun body, you'd be dead in a matter of seconds, the idea that a soda has the power to splice you open, supercharge you, and then come exploding from your chest cavity doesn't exactly say "It's a cheery world with Coke" to me.

Of course, an accusation of attempted world domination via lemon, lime, and carbonation is better than the views of Sprite that have filled its recent history, which have primarily said: Sprite is kinda racist. Ads in the past have come under scrutiny for featuring Black people doing apparently-Black-people-stuff, from shooting hoops to lounging on street corners. It doesn't help that Sprite hasn't seemed to embrace the cultural diversity of the other Cola products, with both the website and a number of ads suggesting, "We like Black people who play sports, video games, or make rap music ... that's about it." There are even several "White Pride" websites that takes offense to Sprite marketing to Black people (though apparently their argument is more that nobody should market to Black people ... ever). But if you actually sit down and watch Sprite advertisements, you'll see the product is a bit more diverse than people tend to admit, with the majority of the "Black advertising" taking place between 2008 and 2010.

But I've got to admit: I'd rather watch a million somewhat stereotypical representations of people in Sprite ads than have to fear my drink is going to use me to launch I Robot scale chaos the next time I take so much as a sip.