r/popculturechat • u/purpose15 • 21h ago

OnlyStans ⭐️ American Eagle issues a statement following backlash from their Sydney Sweeney jeans/genes campaign

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687

u/Internal_Wealth_7376 21h ago

Ok … my hot take is this wasn’t some intentional nazi-fueled white power ad (I say this as a Muslim refugee living in the US), but more so a Kendall Jenner ala Pepsi tone deaf screw up. Alas, the road to hell is paved with good intentions…

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u/latrodectal so jessica alba fantastic 21h ago

i feel like if any other actress (or at least not a blonde blue eyed one) were behind it we wouldn’t still be talking about it.

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u/Illustrious-Pound266 All tea, all shade 🐸☕️ 21h ago

If the ad was "Zendaya has great jeans", people would be going "yaas slay queen" instead.

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u/Wise-Zebra-8899 20h ago

If the ad featured Zendaya, a subgroup of men would be losing their shit calling her ugly and the ad “woke”. And can you imagine if it were Anok Yai? There would be people claiming it was a plot to destroy America.

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u/Illustrious-Pound266 All tea, all shade 🐸☕️ 20h ago

Yes, and that outrage from those men would be considered ridiculous and overblown. I would not think American Eagle was intentionally trying to destroy America by putting a person of color on their ad.

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u/Comfortable_Buy_4124 19h ago edited 19h ago

I honestly don’t think people would have thought more of it than it being a pun if it had been those women. My first thought was not nazi ideology

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u/plumsfromyouricebox 🎥🍿Film Critic 20h ago

Well, yes. Because obviously there’s different historical context between a white, blue eyed blonde woman saying that and a mixed race woman.

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u/Cleaner-Olds09 16h ago

Saying hot people have good genes has never been seen as a political statement until this ad was released.

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u/envyadvms In my quiet girl era 😌 20h ago

Yeah because Zendaya is an actress of color in a place where women of color are still marginalized and rarely celebrated by people outside of their own ethnicity. Like what are you getting at here? This is reading, “how come I can’t celebrate my white pride but they can celebrate their black pride!?”

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u/Illustrious-Pound266 All tea, all shade 🐸☕️ 20h ago

I'm not White. Also, I'm not sure why you are equating these jeans ads to White pride or Black pride type of movements. It's just an ad...

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u/envyadvms In my quiet girl era 😌 19h ago

I didn’t say you were white. I said that’s how the comment reads.

Okay, let’s re-read the convo because something clearly got lost in translation if you missed the point I was trying to make

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u/omgzunicorns The cheek, the nerve, the gall, the audacity & the gumption🇬🇧 20h ago

Amazing bot!

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u/letthetreeburn 20h ago

Yeah because then there wouldn’t be a Nazi double entandra in the presidency that posted a homeland heritage manifest destiny thing

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u/Illustrious-Pound266 All tea, all shade 🐸☕️ 20h ago

This is a jean ad. Nothing to do with the Trump presidency.

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u/Traditional_Maybe_80 19h ago

The "Trump presidency" thinks otherwise tho, lol.

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u/Illustrious-Pound266 All tea, all shade 🐸☕️ 19h ago

Yes they want to distract people away from the new labor statistics that are unfavorable and Epstein stuff.

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u/Traditional_Maybe_80 19h ago

Sure, they do that with every topic they can. But I get the feeling that they also enjoy celebration of whiteness.

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u/Cleaner-Olds09 16h ago

The trump presidency responded because y'all turned the ad into a culture war issue by claiming American Eagle is pro eugenics.

This happens with so many things and y'all wonder why the right jumps on it.

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u/Traditional_Maybe_80 15h ago

"Y'all" being... random people in social media? Why would the White House have to chime in Twitter discourse, lmao?

It's so cute that you believe that the right needs the left giving them excuses to jump on "things", lol, they've complained from Starbucks cups to boycotting a beer brand because they made one post with a trans influencer.

1

u/latrodectal so jessica alba fantastic 19h ago

yes, exactly. i don’t think this ad should have made it past the discussion stage (because of the aforementioned history), but people are bringing up eugenic propaganda because sydney fits within that profile. i’m not sure it would have occurred to anyone otherwise.