In July 2025, American Eagle launched a high-profile fall campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney, headlined by the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” While the pun on “genes” and “jeans” was intended as playful marketing, the campaign quickly ignited controversy.
The Controversial Message
In the campaign spots, Sweeney appears in denim and remarks, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring… often determining traits like hair colour, personality, and even eye colour… My jeans are blue.” These statements accompany visuals highlighting her blonde hair and blue eyes, culminating in the slogan “great jeans” replacing “great genes” on-screen source. The wordplay, critics argue, is not harmless but subtly evokes historical rhetoric around genetic superiority and eugenics source.
Public Reaction and Criticism
The campaign rapidly drew allegations from social media users and cultural commentators who saw echoes of Nazi ideology. Critics emphasized that the emphasis on Sweeney’s white, blonde, blue‑eyed appearance alongside talk of “great genes” resonated uncomfortably with eugenicist and white supremacist narratives source.
Advertising scholars and commentators called it “tone‑deaf,” arguing that such messaging could unintentionally reinforce harmful beauty standards built on racial purity source. On TikTok and X, users labeled the ad a “racialized dog whistle” and “Nazi propaganda” for its evocation of Aryan-coded traits source.
Brand Response and Aftermath
American Eagle has not issued a public apology, but an internal statement framed the backlash as “social media noise,” clarifying that the campaign aimed to promote jeans and support Crisis Text Line, a mental health non‑profit, not ideological messages source. Despite the criticism, reports indicate that the retailer saw a 10–15% surge in stock value, amounting to hundreds of millions in market capitalization gains source.
Final Thoughts
Though the intent may have been lighthearted fashion promotion, the Sydney Sweeney “Great Jeans” campaign demonstrates the complexities of language and imagery in modern advertising. Even benign puns can carry unintended symbolic weight—leading to heated debates over where marketing crosses into ideological territory.