How the Right Shaped the Debate Over the Sydney Sweeney Ads

To hear Vice President JD Vance tell it, the Democratic Party has a serious Sydney Sweeney problem.

“Did you learn nothing from the November 2024 election?” Mr. Vance asked of the Democrats during a podcast interview last week. “The lesson they’ve apparently taken is, ‘We’re going to attack people as Nazis for thinking Sydney Sweeney is beautiful.’”

His comments joined a chorus of Republican and right-wing voices who argued that a new American Eagle ad campaign with Ms. Sweeney, one of Hollywood’s top young stars, had stoked left-wing outrage over its slogan: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” They claimed that progressives were up in arms over the intentional double-entendre with the word “genes,” suggesting it was winking at eugenics or white supremacy.

In reality, most progressives weren’t worked up much at all.

Criticism of the ad campaign had come almost entirely from a smattering of accounts with relatively few followers, according to an analysis of social media data by The New York Times. Conversation about the ad did not escalate online or in traditional media until days later, after right-leaning influencers, broadcasters and politicians began criticizing what they described as a wave of progressive outrage.

In fact, by the time right-wing users were in an uproar, only a few thousand posts on X mentioned Ms. Sweeney, according to data by Tweet Binder, a social media analytics company. Fewer than 10 percent of those expressed clear criticism of the actress or ad, according to the analysis by The Times, which used artificial intelligence to help flag posts for review. Overall, there were three times as many posts supportive of the campaign and Ms. Sweeney on X as there were posts critical of them in the days after the campaign began, the analysis by The Times showed.

The boiling social media frenzy over the American Eagle campaign has been driven, at least in part, by the public’s seemingly insatiable interest in Ms. Sweeney. But it also shows how, on today’s internet, a controversy can sometimes be described as widespread when it isn’t. Instead, people pushing an agenda can cherry-pick from the tens of millions of posts and videos uploaded to social media every day to make their case.

The political right has become particularly adept at this tactic, cognizant of the way that tapping into hot-button cultural issues can stoke popular anger not just against progressive ideas but against the Democratic Party itself. In the case of the American Eagle ads, the one-sided discourse also appears to have provoked an actual debate: Left-leaning criticism of the campaign rose considerably after the topic gained traction on the right. (cont.)

“Republicans are going to just keep hammering this because they know that they can find 13 teenagers on TikTok to say something crazy and then turn it into a two-week-long news story,” said Ryan Broderick, the author of Garbage Day, a newsletter about internet culture.

American Eagle, which has been struggling financially in the face of inflation and sagging consumer spending, started the campaign with Ms. Sweeney on July 23. At the time, Jennifer Foyle, the company’s president, described the campaign as a “winning combo of ease, attitude and a little mischief.”

In one spot, Ms. Sweeney, who promotes a number of other brands as well, zips up a pair of jeans while saying, in a voice-over, that “genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color.” She adds, “My jeans are blue.”

Initial reactions were largely apolitical, though some progressives criticized the ad’s sexual overtones while some on the right applauded a return to “traditional advertising” in what they viewed as a step away from more diverse representations. But on the fringes of sites including TikTok and X, some users began suggesting that the campaign had a more subtle and menacing message tied to eugenics: that blond, blue-eyed looks are somehow superior.

^^The above was from a NYTImes article today.

I’ve literally heard no one in my real life even mention Sydney Funbags over the past two weeks. Nobody gives a shit about her or her “jeans”.

TOTALLY

They came out of the woodwork as SOON as the ad aired. It’s all a construct of the right wingers

[quote]To hear Vice President JD Vance tell it, the Democratic Party has a serious Sydney Sweeney problem.

Someone should ask him, “You mean the way Dump has a serious Beyoncé/Oprah/Taylor Swift problem? Oh, and Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Bruce Springsteen problem? But it’s only a concern for you that liberals don’t like Sydney Sweeney?”

The hypocrisy with Rethugs is always just astounding to behold.

It's actual GOP law makers and their pundits that talked about it. I haven't seen any Democratic law makers tweeting about it. And the left media that talked about it generally were just regurgitating what the right was claiming.

The Right is excellent at messaging and controlling the narrative. People believe their lies no matter what.

[quote] They came out of the woodwork as SOON as the ad aired.

There has been a lot of condemnation of the jeans and DD ads from real people with big followings on TikTok who said the ads promoted “eugenics”. Granted, they all look like the kind of people you would cast as looking like people who would claim a product ad promoted eugenics, but nevertheless, they’re real. This was catnip for the outrage machine of young women on social media.

Oy vey. Progressives started this bullshit. It took off on TikTok.

Good thing Trump saved TikTok.

Trump believes AI is pure genius. Perfect tool for a mad man. Couldn’t write this shit.

That NYTimes article is bullshit.

As if it's only right-wing news outlets and commentators:

Lizzo: