How will you watch the Super Bowl?

I've been thinking (thanks to my wife). Tomorrow is the biggest public sporting event in the United States. An event drawing over 100 million viewers around the country, and growing each year. An event where advertisers will pay $3.8 million for 30 seconds of your time. Super Bowl coverage will start at 4:00am on the West coast and viewers will undoubtedly watch and listen to hours of media leading up to and following this event.

Media floods us. We take it in even when we're not trying. Someone living in a city is estimated to see up to 5,000 advertisements per day. A New York times writer found "advertisers say the best way to reach time-pressed consumers is to try to catch their eye at literally every turn." Is it possible that our minds are affected, even rewired, by media and technology intake without even thinking about it?

Are you taking ownership for what you view...and how it affects you?

This week, the End It Movement unveiled a full page ad in USA Today. This movement is part of a growing effort to expose and eliminate slavery worldwide. This timing is not coincidental. This ad shows up in the Super Bowl preview weekend newspaper. This ad is dropped just before we engage in the biggest annual media explosion in our culture.

The Super Bowl is not just a football game. The Super Bowl is used by many as a manipulative tool with an enormous audience. The Super Bowl is Rome's Colosseum multiplied by 1,800 (111 million vs 60,000).

Sadly, the Super Bowl has become the single largest venue for sex trafficking in this country. In fact, eight people were arrested on Thursday as part of a human trafficking effort. Five precious lives of victims were rescued.

Related, the advertisements we watch will undoubtedly objectify human beings, mostly women, and we will pause to watch those commercials. We even celebrate them. CBS will air an overabundance of footage of the respective team's "cheerleaders." What are producers and advertisers attempting to sell?

The question(s) I've been asking myself and I now ask you:

How will you watch the Super Bowl? Will you allow it to manipulate you? Will you allow it to tell you how to think and what to buy? Will you celebrate the sexual objectification they think you crave? Will you forget the many whose dignity is ripped from them due to the event of a football game?

Maybe you won't even watch the Super Bowl? People have boycotted in the past. I would respect that.

But if you do, I challenge you to consider and critique the ways that this broadcast will try to manipulate you.

And, check out the End It Movement for ways to proactively stand up for the oppressed.

And, watch the video above. It challenged me to consider the ways I participate in a world that objectifies the very human beings I am committed to loving, honoring, and respecting.