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American Eagle breaks silence on Sydney Sweeney ‘great jeans' ad controversy

American Eagle breaks silence on Sydney Sweeney ‘great jeans' ad controversy

New York Post3 days ago
Some things just can't stay buttoned up.
American Eagle has responded to critics after the brand's new denim campaign with Sydney Sweeney caused major controversy.
''Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans' is and always was about the jeans,' the company said Friday in a statement obtained by The Post. 'Her jeans. Her story.'
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7 Sydney Sweeney posing for American Eagle's new denim ad campaign.
American Eagle
7 American Eagle shared this response on Friday after their new 'Great Jeans' campaign with Sydney Sweeney caused major controversy.
Instagram/@americaneagle
'We'll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way,' the statement continued. 'Great jeans look good on everyone.'
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Sweeney, 27, and American Eagle faced backlash earlier this week after the blonde-haired, blue-eyed 'White Lotus' starlet appeared in a new denim ad for the popular clothing and accessories retailer.
'I have great jeans… now you can too,' the 'Euphoria' actress wrote on Instagram on July 23, alongside a video for the controversial campaign.
7 Sydney Sweeney posing for American Eagle's new 'Great Jeans' ad campaign.
American Eagle
But the tagline, which was seemingly a pun on the word 'genes,' had some social media users comparing the marketing move to 'Nazi propaganda.'
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'I thought it was gonna be, like, kinda bad, but wow,' one critic wrote on TikTok. 'That's gonna be in history books!'
'I will be the friend that's too woke, but those Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ads are weird,' another added. 'Like, fascist weird. Like Nazi propaganda weird.'
7 An ad from American Eagle's new 'Great Jeans' campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney.
American Eagle
'Like, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman is talking about her good genes. That is Nazi Propaganda,' a third person commented, while a fourth responded, 'Saying that a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl has 'good genes' is Nazi s–t.'
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Singers Lizzo, 37, and Doja Cat, 29, also took to social media to ridicule Sweeney and American Eagle over the controversy.
'My jeans are black…' the 'Truth Hurts' singer wrote alongside a digitally altered picture showing herself in the denim shirt and jeans that Sweeney wore for the American Eagle photo shoot.
7 An ad from American Eagle's controversial new ad campaign with 'Euphoria' star Sydney Sweeney.
American Eagle
Doja Cat shared a TikTok video of herself repeating Sweeney's American Eagle campaign monologue with an exaggerated accent.
However, others came to the 'Anyone But You' star's defense and agreed that American Eagle's new denim campaign was nothing beyond a clever play on words.
'I'm confused, why are people outraged by this?' one fan wrote on Instagram. 'She looks stunning!'
7 Sydney Sweeney in American Eagle's new denim 'Great Jeans' campaign.
American Eagle
'You have absolutely nothing to apologize for,' someone else commented, while a third wrote, 'If you want to hate on this ad campaign, please go touch grass!'
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Still, American Eagle appeared to distance itself from the 'Nazi propaganda' backlash by sharing other ads from the campaign that did not feature Sweeney.
'Denim on denim on denim… on denim,' the company wrote alongside the new ad on July 27. 'AE has great jeans.'
7 Sydney Sweeney wearing all denim and lying on the ground for American Eagle's new 'Great Jeans' ad campaign.
American Eagle
Plus, American Eagle's stock rose more than 10% immediately after the new campaign kicked off on July 23.
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Sweeney herself has yet to respond to the backlash and controversy caused by her 'Great Jeans' ad campaign.
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Meghan Markle faces new legal battle as half-sister Samantha heads to court again
Meghan Markle faces new legal battle as half-sister Samantha heads to court again

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Meghan Markle faces new legal battle as half-sister Samantha heads to court again

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Is an AI backlash brewing? What 'clanker' says about growing frustrations with emerging tech
Is an AI backlash brewing? What 'clanker' says about growing frustrations with emerging tech

NBC News

time40 minutes ago

  • NBC News

Is an AI backlash brewing? What 'clanker' says about growing frustrations with emerging tech

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By using a slur in a way that would typically apply to a human, people are also elevating the technology, offering some sense that people both want to put down the machines and recognize their ascension in society. Adam Aleksic, a linguist who is also a content creator focused on how the internet is shaping language, said he first noticed the emergence of 'clanker' a couple of weeks ago. Its use mirrored classic slurs related to racial tropes and appeared to emerge out of a growing 'cultural need' related to growing unease with where advanced technology is heading. In one video — somewhat ironically appearing to have been created by AI — a man berates his daughter during a family dinner for dating 'a goddamned clanker,' before his wife steps in and apologizes to the robot. 'What we're doing is we're anthropomorphizing and personifying and simplifying the concept of an AI, reducing it into an analogy of a human and kind of playing into the same tropes,' Aleksic said. 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Brain rot summer
Brain rot summer

Business Insider

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Brain rot summer

We like to see ourselves as individual free thinkers. But when a hot summer trend hits — a style, a song, or even a meme — we can't resist wearing it, blasting it, and posting it. But what about this summer? It's August — schools are reopening, football is returning — and no big trend has taken hold. Summer 2025 feels squishy, undefinable, and chaotic. This season's most anticipated movies are all franchise revivals, like "Jurassic Park," "Superman," "Lilo & Stitch," and the "Fantastic Four." Netflix just set a record for biggest opening of any in-house film: the sequel to the 1996 classic "Happy Gilmore." Where indelible songs of the summer have consistently broken through in years past — "It's Gonna Be Me" in 2000, "Gangnam Style" in 2012, "Espresso" in 2024 — this year lacks a clear winner. At this writing, "Ordinary" by YouTuber-turned-crooner Alex Warren is atop the Billboard Hot 100, a moody tune poised more for overuse as a wedding first dance than it is to be a poolside bop. 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AI slop has infected TikTok, Facebook, and X, and people can't tell that even a herd of bunnies jumping on a trampoline is AI generated. The biggest monoculture moment we've seen so far was the Coldplaygate affair, a moment so cringe it cut through all our FYPs. I'm watching snippets of vacations gone wrong on TikTok and the Jet2holidays ad is living rent free in my head. The internet is piling on Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle with accusations that an ad for jeans was actually a Nazi dog whistle, and in the past few months Katy Perry has gone to space with Lauren Sánchez and Gayle King, split with Orlando Bloom, and is hanging out with Justin Trudeau, a summer romance gossip that feels like a Mad Libs concoction. It's easy to feel the absence of a universal vibe this summer, but the lack of a ubiquitous pop culture hit may be the result of a longer shift, says Joel Penney, a professor in the College of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. "There's been this huge pattern of media fragmentation that's been going on for a very long time." Because more people stream music and TV, "the catalog becomes just as important as anything new," Penney says. Sequels are safer bets for Hollywood to make, and Spotify spins up personalized playlists that feature older songs. Popular content creators with podcasts or large social media followings may seem big, but they also filter us into smaller media bubbles. The privilege of crystallizing and spreading our trends to massive audiences used to rest with late-night hosts, but their influence is waning: Stephen Colbert performed the viral "Apple" dance to go along with the "Brat" song last summer, but this summer his show is facing cancellation. There's been this huge pattern of media fragmentation that's been going on for a very long time. Joel Penney The news cycle, also popular late-night fodder, is fast paced and relentless. President Donald Trump is dominating news headlines in ways few other politicians ever have, from speculation around what's in the Jeffrey Epstein files to how tariffs will affect the economy to his posts on Sydney Sweeney. "Trump takes up all of the oxygen," Penney says. That's been true since he took office for the first time, with a report from Harvard' Shorenstein Center finding Trump was the topic of 41 percent of all news stories, tripling the coverage of past presidents. "There's just so much Trump all the time in the news that it kind of becomes pop culture," leaving little room for other pop culture moments to reach escape velocity. The big summer trends are often driven by, or at least seized by, marketers. "Barbie" had a $150 million marketing budget, more than the budget for the movie itself, and it paid off: The movie earned nearly $1.5 billion globally. If today we don't have one pop princess or color reigning supreme, maybe it's just an off year when no major, resonating work dropped just as the weather warmed up. But it could be an indication that people are growing tired of the mainstream, and weary of their social feeds being driven by algorithms over people. "The brain rot is super real," says Andrew Roth, founder and CEO of the Gen Z-focused research firm DCDX. "This summer is almost an escape from all of that, where people are going offline." DJs are turning coffee shops into spaces to vibe. Friendship and IRL dating apps are becoming popular as young people shirk traditional swiping. The hottest item to buy this summer is a Labubu; a toy made for adults whose appeal lies part in childhood nostalgia, and part in the IRL anticipation of opening a box without knowing exactly what you'll get. "Niche passions in communities are rising up to be an escape from that mainstream narrative that's everywhere," Roth says. "It doesn't feel like everyone wants to be a part of the same Barbenheimer or Brat summer experience. It's more of an individualized, spontaneous one." Maybe after two summers with blockbuster trends, we're feeling burned out and relishing in a break from monoculture. Critics and consumers alike have been feeling like the 2020s are culturally shallow for years, and attitudes about our entertainment landscape are pessimistic. A 2024 YouGov poll found people were most likely to say the 2020s has the worst TV, sporting events, radio programming, music, fashion, and movies, compared to every other decade over the past century. These opinions could be more nostalgia-driven than honest (the 2020s have spurred a deluge of water-cooler talk around highly acclaimed television series like "Severance" and "Succession"), or they could capture the growing frustration with the massive amounts of content we now have to choose from, and the age-old adage that quantity does not trump quality. Trends have shorter lives in our world where short-form video and algorithms dictate who sees what. Brat summer was maybe not just the winner of 2024, but such a massive hit that it became the exception and dragged on for so long that Charli XCX had to declare it over herself. In April, she suggested a litany of artists who could take up the torch. None have. No forced marketing campaign has led to the mass proliferation of one style, song, or movie. So how will we remember the Summer of 2025? Will it be the Astronomer affair? The coupling up of "Love Island's" Nicolandria, or the very public breakup of Elon Musk and Trump? Maybe we'll all have different memories of what defined the season and what we watched and listened to this summer — a patchwork that reflects the chaos that summer brought.

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