Every Super Bowl gives us football, commercials, and at least one food item that exists solely to make us ask, “Who is this for?”

This year, it was a $180 burger buried under blue cheese fondue. Not topped. Not dressed. Smothered.

The kind of burger that looks less like a meal and more like an experiment conducted by someone with access to corporate expense accounts.

Unfortunately, nobody wants to eat that burger. We want to know it exists.

That curiosity is ancient. Long before we had stadiums and luxury suites, humans paid attention to extremes because extremes meant survival.

The biggest storm. The strongest animal. The most calorie dense food.

Our brains evolved to notice the unusual because unusual often mattered.

Now that instinct mostly gets hijacked by headlines.

Psychologists call it novelty bias. We are drawn to things that break expectations, even when we have no intention of participating.

You don’t want the burger. You want the story. You want to tell someone about it. You want to see the picture and react appropriately with disbelief.

Kentucky understands this better than most places.

We gave the world the Hot Brown, a dish that looks like it should not work.

Open faced turkey, bacon, and Mornay sauce poured on top like someone got impatient at the end. It wasn’t created to be elegant. It was created to be memorable. And it stuck.

The same thing is happening here.

That $180 burger isn’t food. It’s content. It exists to be photographed, debated, and shared. It’s halftime conversation. It’s social media fuel. It’s proof that spectacle still wins.

And honestly, that’s fine.

Nobody is harmed by a ridiculous burger. But it’s worth noticing how often we confuse attention with desire. Just because something stops us scrolling doesn’t mean we want it in our lives. Sometimes we’re just wired to look.

The Super Bowl didn’t sell a burger.
It sold a moment of collective curiosity.

And for one night, that was enough.