Sydney Sweeney and her football boobs flash across a digital billboard advertising something that’s totally not a gambling site across the street from the arena where the Lakers, Kings and Sparks all play. We had just seen Digger at the L.A. Live Regal, a weekday afternoon screening to a crowd of, maybe, 10 people. The movie skewers corporate America to the extent that you might leave thinking that its status as a box office bomb is a part of a conspiracy.
Or, maybe Digger flopped because people had blockbuster expectations for a movie that forces us out of brain rot, at least until we’re back out in the real world and confronted with another dumb attention-grab. God, that football boobs ad is so dumb. But, Digger isn’t. I guess that’s a problem. A movie that makes you think could have been a hit in 20th century, but, a quarter-way through the 21st, it’s a tough sell. We can no longer distinguish between advertising and art, hype and merit or fact and fiction. That’s what Digger is about, btw. The climate catastrophe scenario is what moves the plot forward, but the movie itself is about the truth. In fact, there’s a whole “what is truth” type of conversation that serves as a turning point in the film. Digger is not a movie about corporate assholes and politicians versus everyone else. It’s about about the truth versus a good story, which is a tough concept to grasp in 2026 even when you are media literate.
Sure, we can understand that no two people aren’t going to see the same event in the exact same way, but that movie is Rashomon and Digger’s twist on the theme speaks to life in the post-truth age, where there are facts, spin and vibes and trying to untangle all that can result in a big ol’ mess. It’s not so much a glimpse into a possible future as it is a satire of right now, where PR, marketing and advertising are selling us progressively more absurd stories.
Take the first paragraph of this essay as an example. Just because you call it a “prediction market” instead of a gambling site doesn’t make the thing Sydney Sweeney is advertising any more suitable to broadcast across the street from a sports arena. And, no matter how you try to girl boss the angle, it’s still a super sexist ad that’s large enough and garish enough to overshadow the new Lisa Leslie statue standing tall outside of Crypto, about a block away. Also, who thought broadcasting football boobs outside a basketball and hockey arena was a good idea? Save that shit for SoFi.
When the football boobs segue to a Target ad, I feel a pang of nostalgia for a time when advertising looked like advertising and not like slop to fill the MAGA crypto bro trough. I rarely go to Target and most of my trips there have ended with me grumbling about late stage capitalism, but at least I can immediately recognize that hypnotic red-and-white bullseye when I see it. The store sucks, but the branding slays.
The Avalanches looked towards old school advertising, as well as antiquated technology, for their new album, No Bad Memories. It’s a concept album that comes complete with a fictional company and products, design elements that riff on old school corporate branding and fake commercials, which play like the skits on ‘90s hip-hop albums. As for the music, the Australian group pulled samples from old commercials, amongst other sources, to build a collection of very short songs reminiscent of the tune from the 30-year-old commercial that still plays in your head at random. It’s far too soon to tell if anything on No Bad Memories will haunt me the way that the Nestle Alpine White jingle does, but these songs are pretty damn sticky.
The days of memorable jingles and iconography are long gone. Now, advertising just need to be inescapable. So, we scroll through content for everything from restaurants to elections without knowing what’s genuine and what’s sponsored. We accept that every website we visit and every app we open is harvesting more of our data to serve us increasingly invasive – oh, sorry, I mean, personalized – consumer experiences.
This commercialism is so ingrained into every aspect of our daily lives that we probably stopped noticing the billboards across the cities that surround us. I know I did. It wasn’t until I took a walk down Figueroa looking for ads that I saw a can of Michelob Ultra standing stories-high on the side of the J.W. Marriott. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 was pasted on the side of Hotel Figueroa. The digital billboard that boasts the football boobs – which, btw, wraps around a luxury apartment building – also blasts one with Danny McBride, Deep Roy and Shane Gillis that’s either for a movie or Kalshi. Maybe it’s both. Half the time, I’m not even sure what the ad I’m seeing is actually for. That’s probably the point.
On No Bad Memories, The Avalanches created a throwback world where you know advertising when you hear/see it. Or, at least you think you do. Take “Every Single Weekend,” the collab with Jamie XX, as an example. It sounds like a jingle, maybe for a soft drink, but, when you listen closely, you realize that the lyrics are, “maybe it’s the system/maybe it’s the cost of living.” It wasn’t until after my first couple listens that I realized the Avalanches were taking the romance tropes that advertisers used to love and flipping them into songs about manipulation (“I Give Everything I Have 2 U,” “Final Credits” and “Under Yr Power” are good examples). No Bad Memories is an album that digs into both the blatant and covert power advertising holds over us.
It’s getting more and more difficult to discern what is true and what isn’t. On some level, truth doesn’t even matter because people are just going to believe to whatever was said with the loudest voice or blasted on the largest billboard over and over again until we’re finally badgered into believing the spin and the outright lies. In the fictional worlds of Digger and No Bad Memories, though, there’s more truth than reality cares to offer.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Follow on Instagram or sign up for the weekly, Beatique newsletter for updates on new stories and gigs.
Listen to the Beatique Mix for October, 2026, featuring music from Hercules & Love Affair, The Strokes, ADULT., Tinashe, Gorillaz and more.
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