When I first saw Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign pop up on my social media, I was confused. Initially when I scrolled through the post, I thought I had a clear idea of what was happening. It wasn’t until weeks after the ensuing media storm that the true implications of Sweeney’s appearance were made obvious.
The ad in question is nothing atypical for American mass-media. Sweeney dons AE’s blue denim, drawing attention to her blonde hair and blue eyes as she details how “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color.” The television star continues posing as the narrator signs off with his repeated catchphrase: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
Weird? Definitely. Racist? It sure seems to be. Of utmost importance to American society at the current moment, or more poignantly, the goals of a suffering Democratic party? Certainly not.
If anything, the controversy surrounding Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign is emblematic of how The Right tries to distract The Left.
On July 25th, two days after the initial ad launch, both X and Tiktok saw posts comparing the ad to Nazi eugenics propaganda. Still, more than 75% of posts critical of the ad campaign had less than 500 views. It wasn’t until conservative accounts like Libs of TikTok—famous for attacking “woke” progressives—started posting that the ad campaign really gained notoriety.
By reposting and amplifying the grievances that unknown, non-professional creators had with the ad campaign, conservative accounts were able to craft an appearance of widespread liberal outrage. From July 28th to August 4th, there were no fewer than 1,000 reaching a peak of 5,600 daily mentions of Sweeney on podcasts, radio, and television.
Ted Cruz took to Truth Social on the 29th, writing, “Now the crazy Left has come out against beautiful women.” When Representative Eric Swalwell (D. CA) posted on X stating, “attacking the Sydney Sweeney ad is dumb,” Cruz’s post outperformed his almost twentyfold by highlighting the dilemma.
I found it almost comical. The amount of coverage Sweeney got in contrast to the three minutes spent talking about Jeffrey Epstein, it only seemed to add to the absurdity of the situation. Conservative pundits on Fox News outlets made 62 mentions of Sydney Sweeney, relying largely on talking points posited to ridicule liberal outrage. Compare this to fourteen utterances of Epstein’s name, and it becomes clear how manufactured liberal rage is being manipulated by right-wing figureheads.
Conservative commentators seem to have run away with this one. With each mention of Sweeney, public view seems to shift in favor of said commentators. As conservatives overload the internet (and our mental capacities) with mentions of how liberals are trying to frame Sydney Sweeney as a Nazi, their liberal targets have no good choices. Either respond and risk getting drowned out by a right-wing media storm, signing up to become cannon-fodder in a conservative war against wokeness, or ignore claims of overreaction and let Republican sensationalism shape the narrative surrounding liberal outrage.
This article also appears in our September 2025 print edition.
