Jason Derulo Had Robot Dog Backup Dancers At His Super Bowl 2023 Show (& No One Knows Why)
It's Super Bowl Sunday, and some of the world's biggest stars are a part of the festivities surrounding the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles face-off. Of course, pop superstar and billionaire mogul Rihanna is headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show after last releasing music almost seven years ago with 2016's "Anti." Before the kickoff, country singer Chris Stapleton will do a rendition of the National Anthem, and R&B artist Babyface will sing "America the Beautiful," per USA Today. Plus, "Abbott Elementary" actor Sheryl Lee Ralph (and a huge Eagles fan) will be performing "Lift Every Voice and Sing."
For the NFL's pregame performances, the league and the app TikTok drafted "Trumpets" singer Jason Derulo to pump up the audience before the big game, per Variety. Derulo's discography, including hits like "Ridin' Solo," "Talk Dirty," and "Swalla," was sure to entertain. But some viewers are raising their eyebrows at the robotic tomfoolery during Derulo's set.
Fans compare Jason Derulo's boogying bots to Black Mirror
If this is the path AI is going down, maybe we're fine in terms of a robot-revolt-apocalypse situation after all. On February 12, Jason Derulo took the stage for the NFL TikTok's Tailgate Livestream, where his robotic backup dancers stole the spotlight. No, literally, robot dog dancers. When the singer transitioned into his 2023 collaboration with David Guetta — the song "Saturday/Sunday" — Derulo brought out a fleet of robotic dogs to synchronously move to the music alongside him. You've got to admit, they were groovin' as much as a robot can groove!
But viewers of the lifestream online were more than confused over the mechanical elements of the performance. "This Jason Derulo preshow performance with the 'Black Mirror' robot attack dogs," one viewer tweeted in response, in reference to the "Black Mirror" episode with similar-looking killer robots, as pictured in Entertainment Weekly. The overall sentiment online was total confusion over why Derulo decided to add the automated dancers. As one user simply put it: "WHY DOES JASON DERULO HAVE THE WEIRD LITTLE ROBOT DOGS DANCING." Many were comparing Derulo's boogying bots to the ones that have gone viral from the robotics developer Boston Dynamics.
Well, even if viewers are thrown off by the prospect of dancing robots, Rihanna's killer performance should make up for this chaos.