I don’t get it. If none of us will “look back on our lives and regret the things we didn’t buy,” as celebrity spokesperson Ewan McGregor purred in the Super Bowl Expedia commercial, then why am I so vexed by which cryptocurrency to hoard? Or which electric vehicle to plug in? And doesn’t anyone sell gasoline anymore? I feel bad for gas. I don’t think I saw a single oil tanker on air Sunday.
Actually, I do know which virtual currency exchange I’m tempted by: Larry David’s, otherwise known as FTX. In a lavish, very funny sprint through a cavalcade of key historical inventions, Mr. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” plays a series of congenital naysayers deriding freakish novelties like the wheel, or the light bulb (“it stinks,” he tells Thomas Edison).
In the final vignette, David dismisses cryptocurrency as a vague and perplexing fad. “Don’t be like Larry,” the voice-over warns. “Don’t miss out on the next big thing.” This was mud in the eye of Crypto.com brand ambassador Matt Damon, lately and in a vaguely untrustworthy way selling the line that your shimmering crypto fortune is simply a matter of a calm mind and steeled nerves. FTX’s Super Bowl spot shone as infinitely craftier salesmanship.
