Sometimes it’s good to remember that the internet is not a real place.
A couple of weeks ago, American Eagle launched a new ad campaign for its blue jeans line that featured actress Sydney Sweeney. In one of the ads, Sweeney weirdly broached the topic of genetics (she said, and I quote: “genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue”), but, for the most part, the ads seem to be about how great Sweeney’s posterior looks when she’s wearing the company’s denim.
Not long after the jeans ads aired, the internet collectively lost its mind.
One TikToker compared the ad to “Nazi propaganda” and, soon, NPR had dubbed it the “ad campaign that launched a thousand critiques.” CNN asked what America had “learned” from the Sweeney “situation.” Vox used the episode to wax eloquent about the “unsettling legacy of the blonde bombshell.” Dr. Phil and Lizzo both got upset—for different reasons—and America’s president, in a move that was very on-brand for him, issued a mispelling-strewn statement calling “Sidney”‘s ad the “HOTTEST.”
Meanwhile, a number of high-profile MAGA folks (including J.D. Vance, Charlie Kirk, and Ted Cruz) attempted to commandeer the topic, and use it to spur a backlash to the supposed backlash to Sweeney’s ads. To contextualize the recent drama, Rolling Stone magazine unveiled a timeline of America’s conservatives efforts to “claim” Sweeney for themselves as a cultural icon.
