Sydney Sweeney, American Eagle and the absurdity of outrage culture

If you’ve seen the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle campaign and thought, surely someone knew this would cause backlash… they did. Trust me. Ads like this don’t happen by accident. They’re planned, signed off by entire teams, and built to generate exactly this kind of conversation.

Blonde girl, blue eyes, blue jeans, cheeky line. Every detail is deliberate. And while some people are busy dissecting whether it’s tone-deaf, the truth is that outrage was always part of the strategy. Because in 2025, attention is currency. The aim is to get people talking, spark debate, and drive sales. Controversy is the cheapest marketing tool there is.

One ad from the autumn campaign shows Sweeney leaning over the engine of her Ford Mustang. She slams the hood and wipes her hands on the back of her jeans, not without a close-up from the cameraman, before settling behind the wheel and disappearing.

A second begins with her speaking about her “jeans” as the camera slowly pans down to her chest, before she interrupts it with a smile: “Hey, eyes up here!”

The most criticised ad shows her reclining on a couch, squirming as she fastens her jeans, while narrating:

“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My genes are blue.”

A male voiceover closes with: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”

From what I can see, and I say this genuinely, because I’m still trying to work it out, the backlash seems to be mainly rooted in the idea that the campaign is pushing some kind of eugenics-adjacent message. Sweeney is blonde, blue-eyed, and talking about “genes,” and that, for some, was apparently enough. The leap being made is that this somehow glorifies a particular racial ideal.

Others are angry about the tone, calling it male-gazey, dated, or degrading to women. A few asked whether the ad was even meant for women at all. And of course, there are accusations of it being “regressive,” “inappropriate,” and even “Nazi-coded.”

A few of the videos were quietly deleted from American Eagle’s official channels, but the reach was already there.

A sexy ad with no scandal, but endless outrage

Let’s just be honest. This is clearly a nod to the infamous Brooke Shields Calvin Klein ad from 1980. If I’d been advising the brand pre-launch, I would’ve flagged that there might be some comments about that, people saying it’s inappropriate to recreate, even loosely, a campaign that once involved a 15-year-old being sexualised. I understand that. I also would’ve mentioned the Sabrina Carpenter album cover backlash, just as a heads-up. Sexy isn’t flying right now. People say they want empowered women, but lose their minds the second one buttons her jeans. And of course, the blue eye comment would inevitably cause some outrage, but I’m shocked how much it actually has.

That said, this isn’t 15 year old Brooke Shields in the 1980s. This is a 26-year-old woman in full control of her image, delivering a tongue-in-cheek line in a jeans ad. She’s not being exploited. She looks fantastic. And she’s clearly in on the joke.

Overall? I would’ve given this one a green light with some red flickers. And that’s what’s so frustrating, how impossibly hard it’s becoming to predict what will trigger backlash now. Everything is offensive to someone. The fact she’s being called a Nazi for wiping her hands on her jeans and saying she has blue eyes? It’s not just a reach. It’s fucking ridiculous in reality even if you can predict it somewhat.

Is this the end of being sexy?

What’s happening now is broader than one campaign. We’re watching the slow death of sexiness in advertising. Formula One grid girls have been scrapped. Wrestling ring girls are disappearing. Hooters has been culturally sidelined. These weren’t exploitative jobs. In most cases, the women in them actively chose to do the work, enjoyed doing it, and were good at it. I’ve worked with brands like this and I’ve seen it firsthand. These are women who liked their jobs and were devastated to lose them.

The uncomfortable truth is that it’s often other women who are deciding they no longer should. Without asking them. Without listening. Without acknowledging that you can want body autonomy and still choose to be sexy. And frankly, it’s counterproductive. Feminism loses all meaning when it’s only allowed to look one way.

And in this case? She looks absolutely brilliant in the jeans. She’s advertising the product. I never considered American Eagle for jeans, would now. She nailed it. They mastered the campaign because of the huge profits.

It’s working, whether people like it or not

While the criticism was flying, sales were soaring. American Eagle’s stock jumped 10 percent in just a few days, adding over 200 million dollars to the company’s value. For a brand that’s had a rough year, that’s a huge win.

The jeans themselves (specifically the “Sydney” fit) even carry a butterfly detail on the back pocket. According to American Eagle, the butterfly represents domestic violence awareness, which Sweeney is passionate about.

All proceeds from those jeans are being donated to Crisis Text Line, a mental health charity offering 24/7 support. But that part didn’t go viral, obviously.

No apology necessary, and I hope they don’t

Neither Sydney Sweeney nor American Eagle has addressed the backlash publicly. And they shouldn’t. I truly don’t think this is something that warrants a response. The more you explain these things, the more you let bad faith outrage win. Every time a brand apologises for something harmless, it teaches the internet that all it takes to get their way is noise.

This isn’t a scandal. It’s a woman sitting in a car, wiping her hands on her jeans, and delivering a scripted line about genetics. The fact that this is being compared to white supremacist propaganda is beyond parody.

There’s nothing wrong with the ad. And if saying “My genes are blue” now counts as a political statement, then we’ve officially entered absurdity.

They should not be apologising. They should not be acknowledging it. Because every time you reward this kind of performative backlash, you make it harder for anyone to make anything without it being turned into a scandal. Sometimes a woman in jeans is just a woman in jeans. And if that alone is apparently enough to set the internet on fire.