American Eagle’s latest ad featuring Sydney Sweeney has sparked controversy online.
The slogan has led some advocates to allege that the brand is flirting with eugenics, while conservatives declare it a victory against what they label “wokeness.”
American Eagle’s “great jeans” push, featuring actress Sydney Sweeney, is the spark that has ignited the freshest ideological skirmish across social media, with critics seizing on what they say are troubling racial implications woven into the imagery and language of the ads.
Sweeney, whose breakout performances in HBO’s “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus” launched her into the spotlight, is the face of American Eagle’s new autumn campaign, anchored by the slogan, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
The phrase riffs on the already-single entendre of “great genes.” In a clip that has since racked up over 1.1 million views on the brand’s Instagram, Sweeney appears in front of a giant pic of herself reading “Sydney Sweeney has great genes,” only for the brand to strike out “genes” and swap in “jeans.”
While meant as a wink to her genetics, another segment has fanned flames of outrage beyond the typical comments section. Critics on TikTok, X and Threads have linked the wording to accusations of eugenics, “white supremacy” and even “Nazi propaganda.”
“Genes move from parent to child,” Sydney Sweeney narrates, the film pulling up to her own blue irises. “My jeans are blue.”
Neither Sweeney’s rep nor American Eagle has offered on-the-record responses. By Monday morning, both remained silent on the controversy.
American Eagle just rolled out the fall line, and the anchor piece is a limited-edition denim jacket, along with a brand-new cut called The Sydney Jean, made with Julia Sweeney. The jeans are stamped with a butterfly design to spotlight domestic violence awareness; every cent made on the sales is funneled straight to Crisis Text Line, the nonprofit that hooks people up with free mental health support every hour of every day, the campaign notes.
According to Reuters “Sweeney packs that girl-next-door magnetism and main-character vibe, plus a knack for keeping things light— that mix drives the campaign’s attitude front and center,” American Eagle said on the site last week.
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Plenty of commenters are throwing shade, calling the reaction overblown. Others cheer the ad’s politics and shout that it finally sidelines the fad of overly “woke” pitch lines.
The drama is just the latest flare-up in a widening cultural canyon— right-tilting voices are suddenly chasing a comeback, and they keep the gate open for any media that lifts the same old standard of white American beauty, as long as it skips the inclusivity disclaimers.
The currents of style now seem magnetized to a handful of nostalgia-driven movements: “old money” silhouettes, a quiet retreat from the body-positive mantra, and the trad-wife genre making tidy appearances on TikTok and daytime talk shows.
Last week’s surprise that American Eagle would co-brand with Sydney Sweeney lifted the chain’s stock—if only for a single, gleaming tick.
Yet after flooding feeds with a Sweeney-centered reel-a-day for nearly a fortnight, Sunday’s layout pried the No. 1 slot from her: a fresh face—tawny, lowlighted, and tulle-skirted, her denim mantra vague yet reliable: “Denim on denim on denim… on denim. AE has great jeans.”
Most of the comments rolled in with the same syntax: “damage control,” they typed, before noting the new look bore tresses, and a surname, not so easily cataloged.