Canadians tickled at Bad Bunny's halftime show inclusion revel in their 'snow Latinos' identity
"It's Canadá until further notice!"
Canadians are feeling their broader connection to the Americas.
The Super Bowl LX halftime show was one for the ages, both for its record-breaking four billion social media views after the first 24 hours and for the chatter and debate it sparked. Puerto Rican music star Bad Bunny performing the official halftime show entirely in Spanish highlighted the complexities of defining "American identity," a reality the artist addressed directly as he paraded flags from countries across North, Central, and South America and shouted out their names in a call for unity.
While heated controversy around the show swirled in the United States, our neighbors to the north had a hilarious reaction to it. Like the sweet, unassuming kid who stays out of middle school drama but still yearns to be included, some Canadian viewers found themselves tickled by Bad Bunny's shoutout and embraced their Latinized identity.
"It's Canadá until further notice!" one TikToker wrote.
Social media users are sharing where they're from in "Canadá," using Bad Bunny's Spanish accent with a sense of pride to name their country, province, city, and sometimes even their neighborhood. Some add "mi gente latino," meaning "my people," in reference to the broader Latino community, which is particularly endearing as commenters from Spanish-speaking countries refer to their Canadian brothers and sisters as "snow Latinos."
It's all in good fun, of course. One of the remarkable things about Bad Bunny's show is how distinctly and deliberately it broke down barriers while still honoring individual countries as part of a greater whole. Canadians putting on a Spanish accent and referring to themselves as Latinos might normally raise some eyebrows, but in the context of the current moment, it reads simply as a celebration of cross-cultural and cross-continental connection.
@n4ll.y.xxo Next stop- VanCuba 🇨🇺 💃 #badbunny #superbowl #canadians
Canadians are sharing that they're from British Colommmbiaaaaa, Juancouver (or Van-Cuba), Saskatchejuan, Montreyál, Alberto, and other Latinized versions of their homeland. Some have dubbed themselves "Sorta Ricans," while Peruvians are calling Canadians their cousins because the two countries' flags are so similar. In the comments, Canada is being embraced by the broader Americas with open arms, with messages like "Welcome winter latinas," "Canadá is invited to the Quinceañera," and "Welcome to La Familia."
As one person wrote, "The whole point of this performance was to UNITE people and that's exactly what happened."
Indeed, to come out and boldly assert that American identity can be viewed in a broader sense, accompanied by the message "THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE" displayed in plain English, was a powerful statement. Holding up a football that read "GOD BLESS AMERICA" while defining America not only as the U.S. but as the collective lands and nations of the Americas was a bold choice, and one clearly intended to be unifying and inclusive.
Even a Brazilian comedian shared how much it meant for his home country to be included in that collective, saying that Brazil sometimes feels a bit on the outside in South America because it speaks Portuguese rather than Spanish:
The celebration of every nation in the comments is beautiful to see. The feeling of being connected to one another through our shared humanity and proximity, despite geographical and cultural differences, was felt by people of all ages, races, and nationalities.
So many people from around the world felt the message loud and clear: we are one human family, and diversity doesn't have to mean disunity. Questions of geopolitics and immigration policy remain and will, of course, continue to be debated, but they often overshadow the bigger-picture reality that lines on a map, political ideologies, and cultural prejudices are all things humans made up.
International relations may not be that simple, but what the Super Bowl halftime show demonstrated, in a powerfully creative way, is that we as individuals can choose to see ourselves differently by expanding our circle of "we" until we see "them" as "us."
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