In one of the worst cases of being unable to read the room in recent history, American Eagle’s latest campaign sparked more than a week’s worth of discourse by having Sydney Sweeney, a blonde, blue-eyed woman, talk about her really good genes. At first, the campaign was torn to shreds online for having horrible vibes (the vibe in question being fascism). Then, the backlash became a popular talking point for right-wing politicians and pundits to criticize Democrats.
There’s a lot going on here, so let’s unzip this debacle together.
What is the Sydney Sweeney campaign causing the uproar?
Earlier in July, American Eagle launched its new campaign, titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.” In a press release, the brand referred to their latest marketing push as “bold,” “playful,” and “cheeky.” Some people online, though, called it “a dog whistle” that promotes “eugenics.” Turns out people do not want to hear a blonde white woman talking about how amazing her genes are right now.
The concept behind the ads is that Sweeney is wearing American Eagle denim and talking about her great jeans/genes. She’s a beautiful woman, so she’s clearly inherited great DNA, but she’s also wearing what we’re told are a great pair of jeans. Get it? Initially, people took umbrage with a video in which Sweeney lazily purrs, “My body’s composition is determined by my genes,” as the camera pushes in on her cleavage. “Hey! Eyes up here,” she then says with a smile. That video, which went viral on X thanks to a Sweeney fan page that is now private, currently exists only on Reddit, where the top comment reads “MY GOD, we get it! You have boobs! Congratulations on your breasts!”
While early criticisms of the campaign were that it banked too heavily on Sweeney’s sex appeal, things quickly got worse for American Eagle. A different video, which has also been removed from any American Eagle channels but lives on in screen recordings, features Sweeney lying on her back and buttoning her jeans. The camera pans up her body while we hear her in voice-over: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.” Then a man’s voice tells us, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
What did people say about the ads?
Well, some people didn’t love them. In a video that has more than 3 million views, TikTok user @midwesterngothic accused the company of making “fascist propaganda.” “A blonde haired, blue-eyed white woman is talking about her good genes, like, that is Nazi propaganda,” he said in his video. The phrase “Nazi propaganda” came up again in a short video from user @dewwwdropzzz, which has been viewed more than 5 million times.
Some people also called out the brand for seemingly referencing Brooke Shields’s 1980 Calvin Klein ads, which also relied on jeans-genes wordplay. Shields was 15 when she shot those commercials and has since spoken out about the sexualization she experienced as an underage actress and model. At least one TikTok commenter called it “disrespectful” to Shields, and @midewesterngothic said, “Why are we referencing that? I thought we agreed that that was weird.”
On American Eagle’s own videos, the comments sections are now flooded with people accusing them of promoting eugenics and oversexualizing women. “AE promoting blonde and blue eye GENES we are germany,” wrote one commenter on a video of Sweeney wheat-pasting a poster of herself. “If not eugenics, why eugenics shaped,” another person wondered on a clip of Sweeney twirling in an all-denim outfit.
she’s living out her initials https://t.co/gUxdBbiYBD
— Desus MF Nice💯 (@desusnice) July 26, 2025
Elsewhere, Sweeney’s campaign was celebrated as another sign that wokeness is dead. We really will never be normal about this woman, will we?
Wait, what’s this about a domestic-violence charity?
Right, so buried in all of the scandal is the fact that there’s a charitable aspect to this campaign. The brand is releasing “The Sydney Jean” and noted in a press release, “A butterfly motif on the back pocket of the jean represents domestic violence awareness, which Sydney is passionate about.” It added that 100 percent of the purchase price from these jeans will be going to Crisis Text Line, a nonprofit texting hotline that provides mental-health support.
How is this going for American Eagle?
If you can believe it, this campaign was initially kind of a hit for them. Their stock saw a bump after the video of Sweeney’s cleavage started going viral, thanks to (probably) horny meme-stock buyers. But now that eugenics allegations are in the mix, people in the comments are calling for a full-on boycott of the brand, saying that they’ll never buy from it again and that they’re switching to Levi’s.
Has Sweeney said anything about the controversy?
Not a peep. On Monday, she posted a photo of her manicure to her Instagram Stories, as though people hadn’t spent the whole weekend accusing her of starring in a commercial directed by Leni Riefenstahl. Representatives for Sweeney did not respond to a request for comment.
The American Eagle ad is the latest in a string of haphazard endorsements from Sweeney. The week before the American Eagle ads, she was the face of a sherbet-focused menu at Baskin Robbins; prior to that, there was the soap made with her bathwater. She’s also spent a good chunk of 2025 promoting Hey Dudes shoes, the Samsung Galaxy, Kérastase, Laneige, and Hellman’s mayonnaise. If she says nothing, will this blow over? Or are the people who work in the Oreos lab furiously trying to turn the Sydney Sweeney cookie into a Kaia Gerber one?
Who else has weighed in?
On Tuesday, Doja Cat mocked the denim ad in a TikTok that reached almost 24 million views. Our favorite little internet troll has been uncharacteristically quiet lately, but this controversy seemingly reignited her spark. In the clip, she delivered the lines from the campaign with a thick southern twang and even mispronounces the word “blue” to really drive home the point. “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color,” she says. “My jeans are blewww.”
Have any Republican politicians said their piece?
Naturally. On Tuesday, Ted Cruz wrote, “Wow. Now the crazy Left has come out against beautiful women. I’m sure that will poll well….,” on X in response to a New York Post story covering the backlash against the campaign.
Wow. Now the crazy Left has come out against beautiful women.
I’m sure that will poll well…. https://t.co/azOMXl3KXw
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 29, 2025
Since things are slow over at the White House at the moment and there are no pressing domestic or international matters to attend to, White House communications director Steven Cheung also felt inclined to share his two cents. “Cancel culture run amok,” Cheung wrote on X. “This warped, moronic and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024. They’re tired of this bullshit.”
Later in the week, J.D. Vance appeared on the conservative podcast Ruthless to make his opinion known. “My political advice to the Democrats is continue to tell everybody who thinks Sydney Sweeney is attractive is a Nazi,” he said, adding, “You have a normal, all-American, beautiful girl doing, like, a normal jeans ad.” He also took it as an opportunity to stress that “so much of the Democrats is oriented around hostility to basic American life. So you have a pretty girl doing a jeans ad, and they can’t help but freak out.”
What’s this about Dunkin’?
On Tuesday, in another example of “who on earth is approving this,” Dunkin’ made the perplexing choice to release a commercial with similar undertones to introduce two new Refreshers flavors. It stars The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Gavin Casalegno, who also happens to be a conventionally attractive white person with blonde hair and blue eyes.
“Look, I didn’t ask to be the king of summer, it just kinda happened,” Casalegno say in the commercial. “This tan? Genetics. I just got my color analysis back. Guess what? Golden summer, literally. I can’t help it — every time I drink a Golden Hour Refresher, it’s like the sun just finds me. So if sipping these refreshers makes me the king of summer? Guilty as charged.”
As you can imagine, the message was not well-received — and the timing could not have been worse. “You had the easiest W, all you had to do was NOT be Starbucks and stay unproblematic. Now I gotta boycott Dunkin’,” one person commented on TikTok. Another person wrote, “Genuinely what does a drink have to do with genetics ??”
Did American Eagle respond?
Once it got to a point where the White House was defending the company, American Eagle finally released a statement on Friday via Instagram — more than a week after the ad debuted.
“‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story,” American Eagle wrote on a navy-blue tile posted to its feed. “We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.” In quite a dramatic fashion, there’s no caption.
This post has been updated.
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