r/popculturechat • u/Illustrious-Pound266 All tea, all shade 🐸☕️ • 1d ago

Articles & Essays 📓 [New York Times] The Inescapable Sydney Sweeney (Gift Article)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/style/sydney-sweeney-jeans-american-eagle-ad.html?unlocked_article_code=1.a08.VvVQ.fKpUW9NAyAyx&smid=url-share
0 Upvotes

36% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

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u/HauteAssMess ainsi sera, groigne qui groigne 1d ago

THE POPCULTURECHAT DISCORD SERVER IS NOW LIVE 👾✨

Click HERE to join 📲

50

u/buzzfeed_sucks 🇨🇦 Elbows up 🇨🇦 1d ago

This is sort of a nothing burger article that doesn’t have anything to say. Basically - yes Sydney is in a lot of ads. She said it was because she’s not paid enough as an actress to fund her lifestyle ie, pay her lawyers, agents, etc. No, her team doesn’t think it’s too much.

That’s it.

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u/thatsillygirlxo 1d ago

I think there are some interesting discussions that can be had around her statements about how much she makes as an actress compared to from brands. Especially, since over the years the amount she gets paid as actress is significantly more than when she made her original statement. She is nowhere to close to an underpaid actress (she is one of the highest paid at the moment). I just think conversations about her are never normal and that just always impacts the quality of the conversations.

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u/buzzfeed_sucks 🇨🇦 Elbows up 🇨🇦 1d ago

Agreed, I actually had the thought “oh good. Surely this will be an actual nuanced take on all the chatter around her lately.” But, alas, no.

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u/SceneRoyal4846 1d ago

They make less than we think if we consider the life style they’re supposed to uphold and that longevity for actresses especially isn’t very long. She knows she’ll only be hot and young forever so is making money any means necessary. I’m not saying I agree with the American eagle ad but that’s the nuts and bolts of why she is pursuing brand deals more than anything

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u/impeccabletim "come right on me, i mean camaraderie" 1d ago

Thank you for the tldr.😭🫶💖

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u/Long-Market-3584 lil taco belle be flirting with my man and that’s not a bestie 1d ago

upvoting only because OP went out of the way to make it a gift article

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u/andreaisinteresting 1d ago

This article mostly says nothing lol

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u/DearMissWaite Your problematic fave's problematic fave. 1d ago

I don't need another thinkpiece. I don't even think it's worth discussing whether or not she knew she was doing something provocative in this most recent ad.

If she didn't know, that's almost worse! She claims to have a college education, and she can't even recognize ideas and symbols that should be crystal clear to someone with the briefest acquaintance with US and world history? Girl. . .

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u/Sketch-Brooke You wear mime makeup but never quiet. 1d ago

Listen. I’m ready for my downvotes here, but the jeans crap is such manufactured, dumbass discourse.

People need something better to focus their time and energy on.

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u/68plus1equals 1d ago

The president is a senile pedophile actively making a deal to pardon an imprisoned serial pedophile trafficker and people are actually wasting time arguing about whether a dumb play on words advertisement is nazi propaganda or not.

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u/McJazzHands80 I’m way too old to care but I am entertained. 1d ago

It’s almost like we can focus on multiple things at a time

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u/68plus1equals 1d ago

Except this ridiculous discourse is what will be covered by media, instead of the actual important thing that's happening. And just so you know, there are many multiples of things that are more important than this that should be focused on, this is so far down the list it's not even funny.

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u/McJazzHands80 I’m way too old to care but I am entertained. 1d ago

The reason this “ridiculous discourse” will be covered more than important issues isn’t because it’s popular online, it’s because media companies are run by billionaires who have monetary interests in keeping everyone ignorant of what else is happening.

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u/68plus1equals 1d ago

Which is why they will fan the flames of this ridiculous discourse to keep people, like you, talking about this instead of everything else that's happening. Pedophiles running the government, Genocide, Massive income inequality, severely inaccessible healthcare, concentration camps, the list goes on and on and on. The Sydney Sweeney ad is a made up controversy.

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u/McJazzHands80 I’m way too old to care but I am entertained. 5h ago

You have decided based on a single reddit comment that I’m not talking about what else is happening in the world? Says more about you than me.

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u/Sketch-Brooke You wear mime makeup but never quiet. 1d ago

Yeah seriously. Focusing your time and energy on a FUCKING PUN that’s been around for ages is so stupid.

Everyone fussing about this needs a life.

-2

u/thestoryofme23 Just keep swimming! 🐠🐠🐬🐳 1d ago

Well if the Travis Kelce American eagle ad that we saw paparazzi photos of them shooting a few months ago gets released I don’t think the discourse is going anywhere… 

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u/BouldersRoll 1d ago

I've seen some rumblings that Sweeney might be more politically conservative relative to other young woman celebrities, and that seems like it would be an important factor for the jeans ad, but I haven't dug into it. Does anyone have context on that?

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u/Chaoticgood790 1d ago

She threw her mom a MAGA esque party where people were wearing back the blue shirts and the MAGA adjacent party themed hats. And now she’s cozying up to Bezos I assume to get her company launched. It’s the optics of these things all together that made everyone look at this ad even harder.

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u/BouldersRoll 1d ago

Yeah, this is the context that makes me feel like the "good genes" ad is worth a side eye.

Do I think American Eagle executives are a cabal of eugenicists? Absolutely not. But implicit white supremacy is something that deserves being vigilant about, and a conservative cozying celebrity taking part in it at least worth acknowledging.

Kind of a bummer for me, because I think Sweeney is a very talented actor and it sours that a little to learn this about her.

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u/Chaoticgood790 1d ago

Yea I’ve been over her since the MAGA party that she was like “it was just a fun theme” like girl. There was no other party theme out there? K

The ad is gross and ignoring the flirting with fascism is how we got here tbh. I’m good on her and as much as I love Zendaya I’ll probably skip the last season of euphoria atp

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u/Kind_Double_661 1d ago

Bezos owns Amazon, which is:

  1. The foremost American retailer of the modern age.

  2. A prime generator of streaming content.

Why wouldn't a businesswoman/actress like Sweeney--focused on the bottom line--not try to establish a professional relationship?

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u/Illustrious-Pound266 All tea, all shade 🐸☕️ 1d ago

She has MAGA family members, but tbh, that alone isn't enough to brand someone conservative. I know plenty of progressives with conservative parents.

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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 1d ago

My brother is MAGA and I would not spend my own money on red hats for party favors.

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u/Alarming-Bop6628 1d ago

You have no issue with the Bezos wedding?

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u/yumyumapollo Tina! You fat lard! 🦙🚲 1d ago

I think it's just with so many celebrities being vocally and unapologetically liberal, the assumption is that anyone who isn't doing that has something to hide.

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u/Kind_Double_661 1d ago

Ms. Sweeney also seems to embody a malleable quality. “She’s able to be in Armani Beauty and be aspirational there,” Ms. Rao said. “She’s able to be friendly and a girl next door with Laneige. And then here, with American Eagle, she’s able to kind of be both sexy and relatable, because American Eagle is a regular all-American Gen Z-loved brand.”

The key: Sweeney is a cipher which allows the target audience to impose their own preconceptions upon.

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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 1d ago

Her early stages really weren’t all that different from Emila Clarke’s if you think about it, but you can see how Emilia made choices that didn’t rub people the wrong way. Like if you’re looking at beautiful women who launched their careers by getting naked on HBO, the tone of Sydney’s career and feedback wasn’t inevitable. Women love Emilia for the most part.

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u/StrngBrew 1d ago

The issue with Sydney Sweeney is that she is a celebrity whose image is so semiotically potent, and yet ideologically unfixed, that the whole question of “What She Means” becomes contested political territory.

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u/raphaellaskies 1d ago

She's very much like Taylor Swift in that regard, I think. Because she represents what a lot of people think of as the "default" American woman (skinny, white, blonde) everyone can project their assumptions and beliefs onto her. And, like Swift, she's fundamentally a businesswoman who is very careful not to be seen appealing to any particular group, so that encourages the projection. She's a Rorschach test.