Rihanna Halftime Show Super Smash Brothers Comparisons

About

Rihanna Super Bowl Halftime Show Super Smash Brothers Comparisons refers to jokes and memes comparing the stage at Rihanna's halftime performance at Super Bowl 57 to stages in the video game Super Smash Brothers Rihanna performed on platforms of various levels suspended in mid-air, making for a stage that resembled the Battlefield stage in Smash.

Origin

On February 12th, 2023, Rihanna played the halftime show at Super Bowl LVII. Throughout the performance, Rihanna and background dancers utilized platforms suspended in mid-air that rose and fell in height throughout the performance (still shown below).

Jokes comparing the performance to stages in Super Smash Brothers began during the show. Twitter user @Rob_Sheridan^[2] was one of the first to make the comparison, gaining over 5,700 retweets and 40,000 likes in less than one day (shown below).

Spread

Throughout the evening, many Twitter users, particularly those well-known in the Smash scene, made jokes comparing Rihanna's stage to Super Smash Brothers stages. These often employed photoshops adding either Smash characters onto Rihanna's stage or vice versa. For example, on February 12th, 2023, Twitter user @pattymo^[1] posted an image of the stage with Super Smash Brothers characters on it, gaining over 11,000 retweets and 36,000 likes in minutes (shown below, left). User @ModernNotoriety^[3] made a similar image, gaining over 300 retweets and 1,400 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).

Others quickly made video edits after the show. For example, user @sluurptv posted an edit adding Smash sound effects and graphics to Rihanna's performance, gaining over 530 retweets and 1,700 likes in one day (shown below, top). User @Murdoink then made an edit that placed Rihanna on _Smash_'s Battlefield stage, gaining over 90 retweets and 360 likes in the same time frame (shown below, bottom).

The Rihanna x Super Smash Bros DLC goes hard 🔥🔥🔥 #SuperBowlLVII #HalftimeShow pic.twitter.com/9FXcc4mcWd

— SLUURP (@sluurptv) February 13, 2023

Rihanna in Smash pic.twitter.com/fCjT5k6jvr

— Murdoink (@Murdoink) February 13, 2023

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References