What is Super Bowl LIII?

It was the NFL championship played February 3rd, 2019 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, with the New England Patriots beating the Los Angeles Rams 13-3, the lowest score in Super Bowl history[1].

Where did Super Bowl LIII come from?

It was the fifty-third Super Bowl, a scheduled NFL event that turned into meme material because of a boring game and a Maroon 5 halftime show that had been dragged online for months[3].

What does Super Bowl LIII mean as a meme?

Online it stands for a spectacularly dull Super Bowl and a widely mocked halftime show, summed up by the Urban Dictionary line that it promised 'Sweet Victory' but delivered 'Sicko Mode'[9].

How do you use Super Bowl LIII as a reference?

People invoke it as shorthand for anticlimactic events, or reuse specific bits like Adam Levine's pillow-shaped tank top and his shirtless finale in jokes about overpromised, underdelivered performances[10].

Is Super Bowl LIII still popular as a meme?

The specific jokes are historically referenced rather than actively trending, though the 'Sweet Victory' SpongeBob tribute and the MrBeast PewDiePie stunt still get brought up as Super Bowl meme lore[6].

Who won Super Bowl LIII?

The New England Patriots won 13-3, giving them their sixth Super Bowl title, and wide receiver Julian Edelman was named MVP[2].

Who performed the Super Bowl LIII halftime show?

Maroon 5 headlined with guest appearances from Travis Scott, who did part of 'Sicko Mode,' and Atlanta rapper Big Boi, who performed 'The Way You Move'[4].

What was the Sweet Victory petition?

A Change.org petition signed by around 1.1 million people asked Maroon 5 to cover SpongeBob SquarePants' 'Sweet Victory' as a tribute to late creator Stephen Hillenburg[5].

Why did Adam Levine's nipples become a meme?

Levine ended the show shirtless, and Mashable and others noted the double standard given the NFL's harsh response to Janet Jackson's exposed breast at Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004[10].

What did MrBeast do at Super Bowl LIII?

Jimmy 'MrBeast' Donaldson and friends sat behind the Rams' field goal wearing 'Subscribe to PewDiePie' shirts that appeared on the CBS broadcast and in an official ESPN tweet[6].

Why did Rihanna and Cardi B skip the halftime show?

According to USA Today, both artists reportedly turned down the slot in solidarity with former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose national anthem protests had led to a standoff with the league[3].

Super Bowl LIII

2019eventclassic

Published September 29, 2026

Super Bowl LIII was the February 3rd, 2019 NFL championship where the New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 in Atlanta, the lowest-scoring Super Bowl ever played. The dull game and a widely panned Maroon 5 halftime show turned the night into a meme buffet, from Adam Levine's pillow-shaped tank top to a mass petition begging the band to cover SpongeBob's 'Sweet Victory.'

super bowl memes halftime show memes nfl memes football memes 2019 memes

Overview

Super Bowl LIII pulled double duty as a football game and a running joke on Twitter. The final score of 13-3 tied it as the lowest-scoring Super Bowl in league history, and the SB Nation recap called the broadcast 'horrific television' with Tom Brady playing badly and neither team reaching the red zone until late in the fourth quarter1. Julian Edelman took home MVP honors after grinding out receptions all night, giving the Patriots their sixth title and pulling them level with the Pittsburgh Steelers2.

The memes clustered around the Maroon 5 halftime show more than the game itself. Adam Levine's outfit choices, a printed tank top that Twitter users compared to a novelty throw pillow, and his shirtless finale became the night's most-shared moments3. Guest spots from Travis Scott (a fragment of 'Sicko Mode') and Atlanta native Big Boi (a slice of 'The Way You Move') were played up in promo but clocked in short on screen4. Around the show, side memes bloomed: a viral SpongeBob 'Sweet Victory' petition5 and YouTube star MrBeast smuggling 'Subscribe to PewDiePie' shirts into the ESPN telecast6.

The overall vibe was a boring blowout paired with a halftime performance that the internet had been dunking on for weeks before kickoff. USA Today summed it up as Maroon 5 doing 'zero surprises' after a 'months-long public flogging'3, which turned the whole night into low-effort content for anyone with a Twitter account7.

Origin & Background

Platform

Live TV broadcast (CBS) / Twitter (meme spread)

Date

2019

Super Bowl LIII was played on February 3rd, 2019 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, with kickoff scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS4. Both teams entered as the #2 seeds in their conferences and won overtime championship games to get there, though the Rams advanced thanks in part to a missed pass interference call late in regulation against the New Orleans Saints, an error commissioner Roger Goodell later publicly acknowledged8.

The meme conversation actually started months before kickoff. When the NFL announced Maroon 5 as the headliner on January 13, backlash was already loud: Rihanna and Cardi B had reportedly turned down the slot in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, and roughly 100,000 fans signed a petition urging Maroon 5 to drop out3. A separate Change.org petition asking the band to cover SpongeBob SquarePants' 'Sweet Victory' as a tribute to late creator Stephen Hillenburg racked up around 1.1 million signatures before the game5. Both petitions primed audiences to treat the actual broadcast as a punchline waiting to happen.

How It Spread

By the second quarter, halftime reactions were flooding Twitter faster than the Rams could produce a first down. Highsnobiety catalogued a stream of viewer jokes throughout the broadcast, with the halftime show and the tepid offense taking most of the fire7. Maroon 5 briefly nodded to the SpongeBob campaign by playing about three seconds of a 'Sweet Victory' clip during a video interlude and then cutting away to Travis Scott's 'Sicko Mode,' which Urban Dictionary users summed up as the show 'promising sweet victory, but providing sicko mode instead'9.

Adam Levine's wardrobe became its own meme lane. Users mocked his printed tank top as looking like a decorative throw pillow, and his shirtless finale during 'Moves Like Jagger' provoked comparisons to the NFL's overreaction to the 2004 Janet Jackson 'Nipplegate' controversy, with Mashable running the headline directly10. USA Today's morning-after review called it 'dialed-in' with 'nothing that could add to the headache the league has already endured'3, while SB Nation went further and labeled it possibly 'the worst halftime show of the modern era'1.

Away from the stage, MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) and friends parked themselves behind the Rams' field goal wearing 'Subscribe to PewDiePie' shirts, which the Verge reported showed up multiple times on the CBS feed and even in an official ESPN tweet, pulling the PewDiePie vs T-Series subscriber war onto broadcast television6. A Twitter video from the night captured one of the popular in-game meme reactions circulating from Rams fans and neutral viewers alike11.

Super Bowl LIII

Overview

Origin & Background

How It Spread

Frequently Asked Questions

References (12)