Super Bowl Sunday is not about football. After conducting a careful investigation of Superb Bowl parties, I have concluded that there are four key ingredients: food, facepaint, friends and frantic yelling.

The food must be easy to eat and available in large amounts. One-syllable foods are preferable: chips, dip, cheese and guac. The Superbowl is the perfect excuse to mindlessly munch; it is after all, an American tradition.

After the food has been successfully: preferably prepared in large bowls easy to pass around: it is time to amp up the football spirit. It doesn’t really matter which team you are rooting for or even if you are rooting for any team in particular.

“If they’re losing, I’m not rooting for them,” said sophomore Alex Kerr.

“I’m doing all offense,” said junior Sina Yeganeh in response to allegations that he had switched teams.

It was an especially easy to root for both teams this year as they had the same colors. Much artistic license was taken with facepaint, resulting in flowers, footballs, hearts and flags.

“There is an explosion of patriotism on my face,” said sophomore Obreanna McReynolds, referring to the multi-colored flower on her cheek.

The facepaint should be applied liberally and without brushes. The more abstract the design, the better. Footballs resembling strawberry cheesecake were especially popular at one Super Bowl party in particular.

In the sake of fairness, it is customary to paint the face of the person who painted your face. This also helps cut down on the amount of giant penises that get painted.

Friends are crucial to this endeavor. As mentioned above, it is not necessary that they know anything about either team or even care about football in general.

“The Super Bowl is an excuse to yell and get mad about things that don’t matter,” said sophomore Cristine Tennant.

Even the commercials provoked loud commentating and cheering. The local commercials got the most responses; many accused a Yakima commercial of being sexist. This led to a discussion of sexism that ended in some interesting conclusions.

“I think Super Bowl commercials say a lot about American culture,” said junior Jesse Phillips

“Super Bowl Sunday is the day of the most spousal abuse,” said sophomore Annie Roberts.

There was a slight silence until someone walked in with yet more food and then the conversation resumed. Then Tom Brady scored a touchdown, erasing all traces of intellectualism from the conversation.

“I’m only watching the game in hopes that Tom Brady falls out of his jockstrap,” said sophomore Andrew Witherspoon.
Tom Petty’s performance of “Free Falling” struck a chord with many of the girls in the Super Bowl audience, resulting in a five-minute interpretative dance in front of the television.

The end of the Super Bowl was a call back to reality. Many of the Super Bowl audience headed out towards the library, voices slightly hoarse and belts overly tight but all satisfied with their participation in this crucial American tradition.