There was a time when marketing was allowed to be just that: marketing. Jeans were jeans, celebrities were paid to wear them, and no one thought twice about it — aside from wondering if they, too, might look a little better in denim if they bought the same pair.
But now?
Now we live in the golden age of hysterics, where it takes just one social media user with a college minor in critical theory to throw an entire advertising campaign into a full-blown pseudo-academic panic. Enter the case of Sydney Sweeney, American Eagle, and the most baffling accusation of them all: that their jeans commercial is some sort of nod to Nazi eugenics.
Yes, really. That’s the story now. A Hollywood actress wore blue jeans, made a pun about genetics, and somehow — through the warped funhouse mirror of the internet outrage machine — we’ve arrived at a “national conversation” about white supremacy and the Third Reich. In a just world, this would have been met with the dismissive chuckle it deserved. But in our world? It triggered a full media cycle — complete with solemn coverage, think pieces, and demands for accountability. Over jeans.
Let’s take a moment to describe what actually happened. In the ad in question, Sydney Sweeney says:
“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. A playful pun — “genes” vs. “jeans” — used to sell denim, via an attractive, popular actress doing exactly what popular actresses are hired to do in clothing ads: look good.
The only way to interpret this as fascist propaganda is if you have completely lost the plot — or never understood it to begin with. And yet, here we are, trapped in another whirlpool of stupidity, as a handful of perpetually outraged online scolds convince our media and cultural institutions to take them seriously for five exhausting news cycles.
The Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone of Internet Outrage
This is the modern process of controversy creation:
A few people online — with anonymous handles and too much time — invent an absurd interpretation.
Media outlets, desperate for traffic and relevance, report that “people are saying.”
Opinion writers, always hungry for low-effort outrage content, jump into the fray.
Legacy press follows up with “experts” to add gravitas to the invented scandal.
Corporations, fearing bad press, issue statements to “clarify.”
The controversy, now legitimized, is treated as real by virtue of its own recursive momentum.
No matter how baseless the original complaint, it becomes real because it's been talked about. It’s a perverse system — one that rewards hyperbole and punishes common sense. And it’s exhausting.
A Culture of Asymmetry
The Sweeney affair also reveals an increasingly common asymmetry in our public discourse:
If a left-leaning slogan is used — “From the river to the sea,” “Globalize the Intifada,” “Defund the police” — we are treated to a master class in linguistic nuance. We’re told to consider cultural context, translation subtleties, and historical complexity. Even when these phrases are used at events where people are waving flags and chanting threats, we are told: "Don’t take it literally.”
But if someone on the center-right, or simply not overtly progressive, makes a pun — like “good genes” in an ad for jeans — we are immediately told that it’s an echo of Hitlerian ideology. No parsing, no context, no benefit of the doubt. Just hysteria.
This is not intellectual rigor. It’s cultural gatekeeping masquerading as moral vigilance.
Follow the Logic (Or Lack Thereof)
Ask yourself the obvious question: Why would American Eagle, a mainstream clothing brand, want to flirt with Nazi ideology? Why would Sydney Sweeney — a rising, high-profile actress with a major career — agree to participate in such a project?
What’s the motive? What's the payoff? There isn’t one.
For this theory to make any sense at all, you’d have to imagine that American Eagle’s marketing team sat around a table and said, “You know what would really boost denim sales among 16-year-olds? Let’s subtly invoke eugenics.” It’s beyond idiotic. It's the kind of thinking that only thrives in online echo chambers where paranoia and performative moral panic are mistaken for insight.
What’s Actually Going On
Here’s the truth: this is marketing 101. The entire point of the campaign is to make you look at Sydney Sweeney — who is undeniably attractive and popular — and think, “Wow, maybe I’ll look cool in those jeans too.” That’s the entire message. It’s not subtle. It’s not subliminal. It’s not fascist. It’s fashion.
The pun about genes? That’s just a cheeky line in a tradition that goes back decades in advertising. Wordplay is a staple of brand marketing. It’s clever, it’s memorable, and — in this case — it ties directly to the product being sold. It’s the least controversial thing you could put in an ad.
And yet, because we live in an age where satire and sincerity are indistinguishable, some self-serious critic with a digital platform decided to declare the ad “problematic,” and the media dutifully followed.
The Bottom Line
This entire episode is a testament to how unserious and unserious-minded much of our discourse has become. The people who promoted this “controversy” are not deep thinkers. They’re not offering insight or vigilance. They’re creating chaos for clicks, outrage for attention, and paranoia as performance art.
We need to stop treating every online complaint as if it matters — because most of them don’t. Not every ad is a coded message. Not every celebrity pun is a dog whistle. And not every reference to “genes” in a jeans commercial is a covert salute to the Reich.
Sometimes a jean is just a jean. And sometimes the people screaming “Nazi!” at denim are just clowns in search of a circus.
