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Super Bowl 2019 memes: SpongeBob, Game of Thrones, Adam Levine's nipples

New England Patriots beat the LA Rams, but really, the memes won.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
2 min read

The Super Bowl is over, but it scored with some fresh memes. 

The New England Patriots beat the LA Rams 13-3, and everyone on social media was thrilled to see a rare Patriots championship. Ha ha ha boo hoo hoo, just kidding. Congrats, Pats fans, and everyone else... well, Twitter is there for you. "Kiss the trophy, Patriots. I hope the CDC smeared it (with) ebola," wrote one.

Other fans, whose teams didn't even make it into the big game, had some sour grapes to eat.

But for Pats fans, it was all na-na-na-NA-na, because haters gonna hate. Wrote one happy fan, "Sorry, L.A. Boston's just better at this winning thing."

The long-awaited Maroon 5 halftime show may have created more buzz than the actual football game.

Fans hoping for a tribute to SpongeBob Square Pants, in honor of the cartoon character's late creator, Stephen Hillenburg didn't get much, but they got something.

Some were thrilled to get any acknowledgement. "The Sponge Bob tribute the most interesting thing so far," wrote one fan.

But others felt teased, and that it should have been longer. "That SpongeBob halftime show tease was beyond cruel," wrote one.

Savvy Super Bowl halftime watchers also noted that Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine displayed his nipples during the performance, while back in 2004, Janet Jackson's accidental wardrobe malfunction caused a huge issue dubbed Nipplegate.

One of the earliest events to spark social media buzz came when acclaimed Patriots quarterback Tom Brady threw his first pass of the game, which was intercepted by Rams linebacker Cory Littleton.

As you can imagine, non-Patriots fans delighted in seeing superstar Brady humbled, even if only briefly. "(Retweet) if you've thrown less interceptions than Tom Brady," snarked one Twitter user.

But don't get too excited, Rams fans. "The Patriots are 3-1 in Super Bowls in which Tom Brady throws an interception," Sports Illustrated tweeted.

Before the interception, Brady made a notable entrance into the stadium, with sunglasses and headphones firmly in place. Naturally, New England fans loved it, with one Twitter user declaring, "The God of Football has arrived. ...Brady always looking dapper." And another Twitter user compared him to Avengers' supervillain Thanos.

Not everyone was a fan.

Brady's jog out onto the field also stirred a reaction.

Not all the Twitter jokes and memes involved on-screen action. A Bud Light ad set in the world of knights and castles suddenly turned into a Game of Thrones promo.

Bud Light's mascot, the Bud Knight, apparently died an eye-gouging death along the lines of the famed death of Thrones' Oberyn Martell at the hands (thumbs?) of The Mountain. Then came the dragons.

Fans expecting perhaps a real Game of Thrones trailer were as cold as a White Walker about this ad.

This story will be updated as the game progresses.