Outrage Over American Eagle’s ‘Great Jeans’ Ad Was a Conservative Media Creation

This article is part of a series called Outrage Cycle, which examines viral social media narratives that target organizations. Our prior piece in this series examined online attacks against Cracker Barrel and the restaurant chain's female CEO after the company debuted a new logo. 

TLDR

• On July 23, 2025 clothing company American Eagle Outfitters launched an advertising campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney. Centered on a denim-themed pun about Sweeney’s “great jeans/genes,” the ad drew the company into a social media outrage cycle.

• The cycle began several days after the ad debuted, when conservative political personalities on X amplified a small number of posts accusing American Eagle Outfitters of echoing racist tropes in their campaign—and asserting that the ad had categorically outraged liberals. As news media outlets began to cover the purported outrage—often highlighting social media posts from random users—political leaders weighed in as well, further amplifying the narrative.

• Open Measures’ analysis affirmed prior reporting that online accusations of racism levied at American Eagle’s “great jeans” pun had been fringe until conservative figures amplified them in an attempt to disparage their political enemies. These narratives were amplified more frequently and significantly by users on predominantly conservative alt-platforms than by users elsewhere.

• Further, posts about the ad with terms related to political identities like “liberal” and “conservative” appeared more frequently than posts with terms related to racist ideologies—and at significantly higher ratios on conservative-leaning alt-platforms than elsewhere.

• Taken together, our analysis suggests that a majority of the vitriol surrounding the ad campaign centered not on the need to criticize the content of the ad itself, but to use the ad as a vehicle to criticize perceived political opponents. 

Background

American Eagle Outfitters, an American clothing company, debuted an advertising campaign on July 23, 2025, featuring celebrity spokesperson Sydney Sweeney, centered on a denim-themed pun about “great jeans/genes.” The pun was a nod to online tropes praising Sweeney as a superlatively attractive actress, as exemplified by a commercial where Sweeney explains how physical attributes like hair color and personality are passed down through genetic reproduction before finally declaring, “My jeans are blue.”¹

In the days immediately after the campaign debuted, a small number of social media users on X and TikTok criticized the ads for allegedly containing racist undertones. As national news outlets covered the feigned controversy, Republican political figures, and eventually President Donald Trump, chimed in to attack Democrats by seeming to celebrate the campaign’s purportedly refreshing “anti-woke” message.²

In early August, reporters at The New York Times noted that while a handful of the initially critical posts earned millions of views, most saw minimal engagement before July 27, when conservative personalities began to amplify them to their followers as evidence that liberals felt categorically outraged by the ads; their analysis also found that left-leaning criticism of the ads on X “rose considerably” after the fringe examples were attacked, and thus amplified, by right-wing media figures.³

To verify prior reporting and seek new insights into the origins and lifecycle of the controversy, Open Measures used our proprietary research dashboard to examine the discourse surrounding the American Eagle campaign. 

Our Approach

To identify relevant posts from our datasets (mentioning American Eagle, Sweeney, the “great jeans” slogan, and other relevant keywords), our researchers created Boolean strings and progressively optimized them using our platform’s AI search feature. Our first search string was designed to capture general posts that referenced advertisements related to American Eagle, Sweeney, or the ad’s slogan:

("American Eagle" OR "AE" OR #AmericanEagle OR "great jeans" OR #greatjeans OR "Sydney Sweeney" OR "Sweeney" OR #SydneySweeney) AND (ad* OR campaign* OR commercial* OR promo* OR sponsor* OR market* OR video*)

From there, our researchers created an expanded search string to narrow those results to posts that also included terms related to racism or bigotry (a list of “reasons” and/or their related terms that allegedly upset liberals about the ads, according to conservative media personalities). The resulting search string was:

(("American Eagle" OR "AE" OR #AmericanEagle OR "great jeans" OR #greatjeans OR "Sydney Sweeney" OR "Sweeney" OR #SydneySweeney) AND (ad* OR campaign* OR commercial* OR promo* OR sponsor* OR market* OR video*)) AND ("14 words" OR "1488" OR "alt-right" OR bigot* OR "blood and soil" OR dogwhistl* OR “eugenic*” OR “extrem*” OR “fascist*” OR "fourteen words" OR “hitler*” OR “identitarian*” OR "master race" OR “nativist*” OR “nazi*” OR "race and IQ" OR “racis*” OR "racial purit*" OR "superiority" OR "white genocide" OR "white nationalist*" OR “white supremac*” OR “xenophob*”)

Finally, we modified our initial search string into another expanded string to include general terms related to partisan ideologies or political identities (to compare and contrast against our second expanded string):

(("American Eagle" OR "AE" OR #AmericanEagle OR "great jeans" OR #greatjeans OR "Sydney Sweeney" OR "Sweeney" OR #SydneySweeney) AND (ad* OR campaign* OR commercial* OR promo* OR sponsor* OR market* OR video*)) AND ("anti-Trump*" OR "anti-woke*" OR "antifa*" OR "centrist*" OR "commie*" OR "conservativ*" OR "culture war*" OR "dem*" OR "far left" OR "far right" OR "far-left" OR "far-right" OR "GOP" OR "left-wing*" OR "leftie*" OR "lefties" OR "leftist*" OR "lib*" OR "libtard*" OR "MAGA*" OR "marxist*" OR "moderate*" OR "neo-conservativ*" OR "neocon*" OR "neoliberal*" OR "partisan*" OR "politician*" OR "progressive*" OR "pro-Trump" OR "repub*" OR "right-wing*" OR "rightist*" OR "SJW*" OR "snowflake*" OR "socialist*" OR "Trump*" OR "woke" OR "wokism")

Next, we limited our search to posts made within the four-week period of July 16 to Aug. 12, 2025, to span the week before the ads debuted and end three weeks thereafter. We chose this timeframe both to collect a right-sized sample of posts and to generate a complete and contrastive picture of general versus heightened activity for our various search terms. Finally, our researchers ran their searches for 11 sources contained in our datasets, chosen for their higher levels of user activity and their histories of marketing to US political audiences.⁴

Our Findings

Open Measures identified nearly 23,500 posts about advertisements related to American Eagle, Sydney Sweeney, or the campaign’s “great jeans” tagline from our chosen timeframe. The majority of all posts we identified (more than half, at ~56%) were created between July 30 and Aug. 5, the second week after the “great jeans” ads debuted.

Caption: More than half of posts containing keywords related to advertising featuring American Eagle or Sydney Sweeney in the analysis period were posted seven to 14 days after the “great jeans” campaign debuted. (Graphic made with Flourish using Open Measures data)

Examining the data further, our researchers found that the volume of daily posts related to American Eagle ads and/or Sydney Sweeney were relatively few and steady until July 27, when prominent conservative media personalities began amplifying posts from a handful of users who accused the ads of being racist, claiming the posts broadly represented liberal attitudes about the ads.⁵ In the days that followed, as news media coverage and interest from political figures increased, the number of daily posts swelled. The day that saw the highest number of posts identified by the search string was Aug. 4, around the time Trump praised Sweeney after learning she was a registered Republican voter.⁶

Caption: While American Eagle’s ads featuring Sydney Sweeney debuted on July 23, the number of posts discussing ads featuring the brand or actress were relatively stable until July 27, when conservative social media personalities began claiming that liberals were outraged by the adverts. Mentions peaked on Aug. 4, around the time Trump spoke positively of Sweeney. (Graphic made with Flourish using Open Measures data)

Overstatement of Liberal Backlash Against “Great Jeans” Ads

Open Measures found that fewer than 6% of posts mentioning advertisements related to American Eagle or Sweeney in the timeframe analyzed also included terms related to racial bigotries—the reason liberals were supposedly outraged by the ads in the first place. 

Similarly, our researchers did not see a surge in posts containing terms related to racist bigotries until after conservative commentators on X began amplifying fringe criticisms of the ads. The earliest posts they identified received minimal engagement on their respective platforms, or were false-positive outliers for the search string used. 

Caption: Few posts mentioning ads related to American Eagle or Sydney Sweeney included references to racist ideologies before July 27, when conservative media personalities began alleging that the ads offended liberals. (Graphic made with Flourish using Open Measures data)

Notably, several alt-platforms with predominantly conservative communities—Gab, Gettr, Rumble, and Truth Social—saw posts including terms related to racist bigotries at higher rates than alt-platforms with predominantly liberal communities, like Bluesky. About 21% of Gab posts, 13% of Gettr posts, 9% of Rumble videos, and 8% of Truth Social posts included a related term; comparatively, less than 7% of Bluesky posts did.

Greater Mentions of Political Identity than Racism or Bigotry

Open Measures found more that three times as many posts in our initial inquiry included terms referencing partisan and ideological political identities than posts that referenced terms associated with racist ideologies. 

More than 20% of posts mentioning American Eagle or actress Sydney Sweeny also included terms like “conservative” or “liberal,” signaling that the “great genes” discourse was more of a reflection on the political communities themselves than of the content of the actual ads. The discrepancy between the number of posts mentioning political identity and those mentioning racism was highest on Aug. 4, around the time Trump praised Sweeney for being a registered Republican.

Caption: More posts that discussed advertisements featuring American Eagle or Sydney Sweeney during the analysis period included terms associated with political identities than terms associated with allegations that the “great jeans” ads contained racist undertones, though some limited overlap did exist. The highest point of discrepancy was seen after Trump complimented Sweeney on Aug. 3-4, 2025. (Graphic made with Flourish using Open Measures data)

The ratio of posts including terms about political identity were again highest on conservative-leaning alt-platforms. The highest concentration of keywords was seen on 8kun, an anonymous image board, where two-thirds of all posts in our initial inquiry also included a term related to political identity. The next-highest ratio appeared on Truth Social, where more than half of all posts included such a term.

Caption: The ratio of posts containing terms related to political identity to all posts mentioning American Eagle or Sydney Sweeney were highest on alt-platforms with predominantly conservative political communities. (Graphic made with Flourish using Open Measures data)

Conclusion

Claims that the backlash surrounding American Eagle’s “great jeans” ad campaign was sparked by liberals who believed the ads contained racist undertones have been severely overstated by political and news media personalities. Though liberal criticism of American Eagle’s “great jeans” ads did increase over time, it didn’t rise until prominent conservative figures attacked liberals for their supposed outrage.

Further, a larger share of posts discussing the ads that also claimed the ads echoed bigoted ideologies were represented on alt-platforms with predominantly conservative communities than those without, indicating that the claims were more popular with conservative critics of liberals than with liberals themselves. More often, our researchers found, ad-related posts contained terms related to looser forms of political identity—a dynamic that was more commonly found on alt-platforms hosting predominantly conservative communities as well.