We have reached a point where an American Eagle denim ad starring Sydney Sweeney is being called Nazi propaganda. Maybe it’s time to admit the internet is becoming dangerously oversensitive.
The ad features Sweeney saying “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality, and even eye colour. My jeans are blue”. This is then followed by the narrated line “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”. Clearly this is a play on words between ‘jeans’ and ‘genes’, yet the campaign has been accused of promoting eugenics, white supremacy, and even Nazi propaganda.
Let’s be real, it’s not that deep. There was no secret agenda behind it. While the ad may have been extremely tone deaf, it is outrageous to accuse a pun about pants of suggesting white supremacy, just because “great jeans” is said in reference to a white actress. It was a play on words, not dog-whistling to fascism. To claim a slogan of a denim campaign is eugenics is dangerously oversensitive.
American Eagle responded to this backlash on Instagram by essentially saying the campaign really is just about jeans.
Not only is the backlash to this campaign dangerously oversensitive, but by throwing around terms such as “eugenics”, “Nazi propaganda” and “fascism” so loosely, it takes away from their actual meanings. The dilution of these terms actual meanings makes it impossible to be able to distinguish between something actually harmful, and just a really tone-deaf marketing campaign. With these terms being used so loosely, people will take real calls to action less seriously.
While the aim of the campaign was certainly not for it to be perceived as the brand claiming Sweeney only has good genes because she’s a white blonde with blue eyes, the backlash has brought a lot of attention to the campaign. American Eagle stocks are up by 25% in the last month, and American Eagle was trending, as well as the audio of the ad on TikTok garnering over ten thousand posts.
Because of TikTok we have become so obsessed with outrage, oversensitivity and cancel culture in general. With enough dissection, people find something wrong or problematic with everything, and anything.
If we see everything as offensive, then nothing actually is.
Kathrynf 
Alexander Hanjin De Filippo 
Eabha Quinn
I really liked your article Sascha, I think you took an interesting perspective and I believe there is a lot of internet spiralling that occurs when there are ‘scandals’ like this – I agree that it is obviously tone deaf, but extrapolating it can take focus away from actual issues that are worth focusing on.