Dubai chocolate, Labubus (specifically the 24 karat one), and singer Benson Boone have all been topics of this past summer. Unfortunately, so have Sydney Sweeney’s jeans and her genes.
On July 23, 2025, American Eagle put out an advertisement with Sydney Sweeney promoting their new jean collaboration with the actress. However, the ad began to upset many people, including myself, based on the weird vibe surrounding the clips posted by the official company. The main line, an automated voice, kept repeating “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”. Now this could just be complimenting her jeans; however, many felt it was quite the opposite.
Throughout the several videos from the shoot, there were many unsettling things that Sweeney had said to “promote” this line. A now infamous line, “ Jeans are passed down from generation to generation,” with the camera staring at her face and slowly panning down her body. Many found this video very insensitive as the word jeans is a homophone to genes and both words could be interchangeable in the context.
Along with that, the video itself had a very uncomfortable vibe to it, with many saying it was quite similar to the infamous Brooke Shields Calvin Klein ad. If you are not aware of the 1980s infamous advertisement consisted of 15-year-old Shields struggling to put jeans on while lying down. Whilst doing this, she mentions, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” This ad caused major uproar, and all the similarities were widely disturbing to most viewers.
This ended up leading to many customers deciding to boycott the company. Many viewers also believe that this ad was made to be controversial, as when it was released, the company’s stocks increased drastically.
Another point many began to address was that this ad was promoting the idea of eugenics. Now, the whole point of eugenics is the idea of getting a mass population to arrange reproduction with traits that are desirable. Many are already aware of the fact that Sweeney has blonde hair and blue eyes, which have been historically defined as desirable and “attractive features”.
Along with that, with the play on words between genes and jeans, many saw this as a direct attempt to share a “new way” of thinking with the general public. A poster in New York shared a photo of Sweeney with the catchphrase “Sydney Sweeney has great genes,” with the word “genes” crossed out and replaced with “jeans” outside of the American Eagle store.
A little bit after this ad was released to the public, there was a lot of discourse about what this ad was promoting. After discussing this with my friends, I soon realized I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Sweeney had also made her own customized jeans with American Eagle, where 100 percent of the proceeds go to the Crisis Text Line. The overall response from American netizens was quite negative; yet, President Donald Trump had a different response.
After seeing the ad, Trump posted a Truth Social post that stated, “Sydney Sweeney, a registered republican, has the HOTTEST ad out there. Go get ‘em, Sydney”.
Since then, no other companies have released “counter” ads except for a recent one from GAP. On Aug. 19, GAP posted an ad with the girl group Katseye. Contrary to Sweeney’s, this ad was way more well-received by the public and actually convinced many to start buying from GAP as well.
Now, overall, as someone who spent most of their summer chronically online, I will say this ad was quite strange. Agreeing with most of the public response, I too was quite unsure of what the ultimate goal of this ad was set out to do. However, if this ad did do anything, it did convince me to start buying jeans from Hollister.