Sydney Sweeney’s latest advertising campaign for American Eagle has ignited a fierce backlash over its “great genes” wordplay, with critics accusing the retailer of promoting eugenics-era beauty standards despite the campaign’s charitable support for domestic violence survivors.
The 27-year-old Euphoria actress is fronting the denim brand’s autumn 2025 campaign with the tagline “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” – a pun that has divided social media and sent the company’s shares soaring by as much as 21 per cent amid the controversy.
In promotional videos that have garnered millions of views, Sweeney appears before a billboard reading “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Genes” before crossing out “genes” and replacing it with “jeans”. The wordplay continues throughout the campaign, with the actress explaining that “genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour”.
Eugenics Accusations Flood Social Media
The campaign has triggered immediate criticism online, with many pointing out that phrases like “good genes” and “great genes” have historically been associated with eugenics – the discredited pseudoscience that advocated selective breeding to “improve” the human race and was embraced by Nazi ideology.
“Maybe I’m too f***ing woke. But getting a blue-eyed, blonde, white woman and focusing your campaign around her having perfect genetics feels weird,” one user wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Another commented: “I like Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle as much as the next guy but ‘we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children’ is a crazy tagline for selling jeans.
Professor Robin Landa, an expert in advertising, told Newsweek: “The campaign’s pun isn’t just tone-deaf—it’s historically loaded. When major brands use language with such weight, they risk reinforcing harmful ideologies under the guise of clever messaging.”
Charitable Intent Lost in Translation
Crucially, the campaign includes a charitable component that has been largely overshadowed by the controversy. American Eagle is launching “The Sydney Jean,” a limited-edition wide-legged style featuring a butterfly motif on the back pocket representing domestic violence awareness.
The company has pledged to donate 100 per cent of proceeds from these £70 ($89.95) jeans to Crisis Text Line, a non-profit providing free 24/7 mental health support and crisis intervention. However, critics argue this meaningful message has been buried beneath the provocative marketing.
“If you watched those Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ads, you’d never know they were fundraising for a domestic violence charity,” one social media user observed.
Marketing professor Melissa Murphy described the juxtaposition of the sexual nature of the ads with the domestic violence tie-in as “mismatched” tonally, suggesting the campaign’s execution undermined its charitable intentions.
Cultural Divide Deepens
The backlash has exposed a growing cultural rift, with some defenders of the campaign framing criticism as excessive “wokeness”. Supporters have praised Sweeney for what they see as a rejection of overly politically correct advertising.
“Woke advertising is dead. Sydney Sweeney killed it,” declared one fan on social media, whilst others accused critics of overreacting to what they viewed as harmless wordplay.
The polarised response reflects broader tensions in contemporary marketing, where brands increasingly find themselves navigating political and cultural minefields. NPR media analyst Allen Adamson suggested the campaign represents a deliberate shift away from inclusive advertising trends of recent years.
“This was a company figuring out how to break through in a world where everyone is screaming and saying, ‘Look at me, look at me!'” Adamson explained. “It’s indicative of a shift away from a more inclusive form of advertising seen over the past few years.”
Stock Surge Amid Controversy
Despite – or perhaps because of – the backlash, American Eagle’s stock price has surged dramatically since the campaign launched. Shares climbed as much as 21 per cent, with some analysts suggesting the retailer could become the latest “meme stock” driven by viral social media attention rather than traditional financial fundamentals.
The surge comes as the company attempts to recover from a challenging period, having reported a £52 million ($68 million) adjusted operating loss in the first quarter due to tariffs. The stock remains down approximately 45 per cent year-over-year despite the recent boost.
Craig Brommers, American Eagle’s Chief Marketing Officer, had described securing Sweeney as “the biggest get in the history of our brand”, noting that the media buy for this campaign was “significantly more” than previous efforts.
Marketing Misstep or Calculated Risk?
Industry experts remain divided on whether the controversial messaging was an unfortunate oversight or a calculated attempt to generate viral attention. The campaign appears to reference a 1980s Calvin Klein advertisement featuring Brooke Shields, which similarly played with genetics terminology.
Cheryl Overton, Chief Experience Officer at Cheryl Overton Communications, emphasised that the campaign “doesn’t exist in a vacuum” but rather in “a country actively grappling with social standards rooted in whiteness.
“The subtext isn’t imagined; it’s rooted in centuries-old narrative about one archetype of beauty that is seen as genetically superior or ‘aspirational’,” Overton explained.
Hillary Herskowitz, CEO of H2 Marketing Group, added: “When you pair that kind of wordplay with a blond, blue-eyed actress, it can unintentionally reinforce narrow, Eurocentric beauty standards.”
Silence from Key Players
Neither Sweeney nor American Eagle have publicly addressed the controversy at the time of publication. The brand’s social media accounts have continued posting campaign content, though a recent Instagram post featuring a non-white model prompted accusations of “damage control” from commenters.
The campaign represents a significant departure for American Eagle, which typically features multiple celebrities rather than focusing on a single face. Company president Jennifer Foyle had praised Sweeney’s “girl next door charm and main character energy” in the initial announcement.
As the debate continues to rage online, the incident serves as a stark reminder of how quickly marketing campaigns can become flashpoints in broader cultural conflicts. Whether the controversy ultimately helps or harms the brand’s long-term reputation remains to be seen, though the immediate financial impact appears positive.
For now, the campaign has succeeded in one clear objective: getting people talking about American Eagle jeans. Whether that conversation is the one the company intended is another question entirely.
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Image Credit:
Sydney Sweeney, 2019 – Photo by Glenn Francis of www.PacificProDigital.com, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
