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.