NEW ORLEANS: Yesterday’s Super Bowl set a record for TV audiences, and also set a record for the most disgusting advertisement in NFL history. It’s hard to chronicle all of the offensive ads through the years, but certainly Motorola’s ad touting it’s new MOTOBLUR software has to be ranked the most offensive. While the commercial was not particularly graphic, it did have its share of innuendo and double entendre. What the NIP finds most offensive is that the commercial legitimizes the practice of sexting.

Sexting, the practice sending pornographic images of one’s self or other via text messaging or email, has been linked to all kinds of problems among youth in this country, even being linked to the suicide of one teenager. Back in 2007 cheerleader coach Victoria Schattauer in Goshen Ohio made history when she photographed herself with a student topless. The photo was sexted and emailed all over the school, and subsequently all over the country. The photos shocked the country because of their graphic nature involving a teacher and a student together, with the teacher taking the photo. Since then apparently lots of other coaches have followed suit, judging by a quick Google search of “coaches sexting.”

Motorola’s commercial shows actress Megan Fox taking a picture of herself in the tub and sending it out. Besides frying the local telephone lines the explicit photo makes the rounds to a teenage boy locking himself in a bathroom, a voyeuristic husband getting slapped by his wife, a gay couple slapping each other, etc., all in good fun, apparently in the judgement of Motorola executives. The trouble is that teens don’t need any more incentive to engage in sexting. This commercial does not help teens understand just how severe the consequences can be: Read more…