this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2025
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Did no one even watch the ad?! It was 15 seconds!!!! (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 6 days ago by TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
45 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I swear, people on the comm are deeply uncurious and in denial about basic facts. The ad was unquestionably promoting eugenics in a silly tongue and cheek way πŸ€ͺ. We live in a fascist state where people and companies feel more bold in coming out of the closet as evil; how is it so hard to believe that they'd run an ad like that?

I doubt it's just this comm though. Americans in general are as in denial about the state of things as the 1930s Germans before them. Things are more outrageous than they feel comfortable with, so to maintain their view of a just world, they just become further detached from reality. It's easier to think the ground under you is stable than scramble to deal with the quicksand.

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[–] FinalRemix@lemmy.world 30 points 6 days ago (1 children)

How about we all just agree to ignore the Bezos-funded lingerie hocker?

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone -5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'd rather know that what she said wasn't eugenics propaganda than dismiss it outright like people here seem to do. There's nothing wrong with a lingerie hooker, but everything wrong with a eugenicist

[–] FinalRemix@lemmy.world 20 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Hocker. Not a typo. She's getting money and a fuckload of artificial coverage from Bezos to hockβ€”or promoteβ€”a line of lingerie.

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 17 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What is actually the issue with the ad saying she has great genes? How is it promoting eugenics? How is hinting at her having good genes/jeans coming out as evil? If someone said LeBron has good genes I wouldnt think they're in favour of eugenics trying make an army of LeBrons although that would be badass and I would encourage that.

Is this all because she has blonde hair and blue eyes and the 1930s moustache man also thought blonde hair and blue eyes were superior?

It feels like outrage generated by guerilla marketing by the ad firm.

[–] tyo_ukko@sopuli.xyz 12 points 5 days ago

The issue is not that she is in some sense factually incorrect. The issue is that this type of language has not been used since the mustache man, and fascists typically love to slowly move the narrative towards their ideology.

If someone said LeBron has good genes I wouldnt think they’re in favour of eugenics trying make an army of LeBrons although that would be badass and I would encourage that.

What you don't see is that once you accept publicly that some genetics are superior and preferred, you also silently acknowledge that some are inferior. Next step is to start asking what do we do to the inferior ones. Should we tolerate them holding us back? They cost us money and opportunities. They are in fact our enemies. Enemies must be removed to keep the pack strong. You know, we could put them into these camp sites and you don't need to know what happens in there.

This rhetoric moves slowly. It has to be opposed at every step.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 19 points 5 days ago

What ad? I haven't seen an ad in at least 15 years.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 18 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Yeah I still think it’s a tit joke. Her great jeans/genes make her hot.

My wife shops at American Eagle. They use models of all shapes colors and sizes, and I even recall them hiring a model that happens to have Down’s Syndrome. I just haven’t seen enough to find the eugenics accusations credible.

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Companies will love diversity when it gets them the most money. For entities that only respond to customers purchasing products, there is only virtue signaling, never any actual moral stances. If they think they can market to eugenicists openly in this political climate they will. Your money and their money are no different to them.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I agree companies are amoral. I’m not sure how many eugenicists are in the market for jeans, but I think it’s a safe bet that there are more thirsty dudes than them

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 5 days ago

It's all about how salient the demographic is to being seen. They'll be more likely to go buy jeans out of bigoted pride than almost any demographic you can target. They're both extremely simple minded and only now getting the mainstream recognition they've been craving.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Is breast size genetic?

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

I’m not a scientist but from what I can tell yes it’s at least in part a heritable trait

[–] Chronographs@lemmy.zip 11 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I didn’t even know their was a video ad I’d just seen the version of this at my local mall.

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

friggin Nazis

[–] SpaceBishop@lemmy.zip 10 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The quote is present in the print ads. Is this meme intentionally misrepresenting that? What is the angle, here?

[–] Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

There's different ads. One of them has the quote in the post.

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/01/nx-s1-5487286/sydney-sweeney-american-eagle-explained-why-controversy-racist-eugenics-trump-bathwater-ad-klein-statement

Edit: Oh, you thought OP was trying to discredit the criticism. I think we're all on the same page now.

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

And that makes things better how? She still gave a eugenics dog whistle for a company in an era of out and proud fascism. I'm sorry you can't hear a dog whistle, but the dogs and the people who know their playbook certainly do.

[–] SpaceBishop@lemmy.zip 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's not better. Thats pretty terrible. It sounds like you and I agree that Sweeney was making a full-throated endorsement for white supremacy. And, to be clear, we agree that's bad. So what's the angle posting a meme saying "she never said that" when the quote can be easily attributed to her?

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's a comment on people who thought that was all she said, who have been quite numerous in this comm.

[–] SpaceBishop@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago

Got it. Cool.

When I saw this originally I was already coming down from someone else in my circles saying probably exactly what you had in the meme, but without the critical thinking part. Like a kind of "she never said she had great genes, she said her eyes were blue! Suck it liberal! Facts>feelings!" Your commentary makes sense, but the meme was exactly, like I am pretty sure close to verbatim what they had said in defense of the ad. So in seeing the meme I was ready for war.

[–] ComicalMayhem@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (3 children)

What's this all about?

[–] Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

A maga enthusiast made an ad about her great blue-eye genes that doubled as a jeans ad.

There's different versions of the ad that just talk about her genes suggesting she's attractive. Some people saw the latter and didn't see the former, so they think people are talking about the latter rather than the former.

None of this addresses the Epstein files being kept hidden.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world -4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Okay? So?

[–] Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

They asked. I answered.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

What I'm asking is why is this newsworthy?

[–] L0rdMathias@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 days ago

A person made an AD that was based off a poor taste pun. Then a bunch of political activists doxxed the actress's voter registration information and comandeered the conversation making it a right/left thing. Then Trump then added fuel to the fire, which enabled everyone to double down on forcing an advertisement made in poor taste to inflate into psyop political conspiracy mania.

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 days ago

A denim ad where blonde hair blue eyed Sydney Sweeney says this while text reading "she has good jeans" flashes on screen. It's a huge dog whistle playing on eugenic ideas for laughs, allowing the ignorant and fascist alike to dismiss it as just a joke (which fascists like couch fucker were more than happy to do)

[–] Damionsipher@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

These sick fucks would look directly in your eyes while they shit on the floor and then lie to you it was the dog.

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 5 days ago

Often nobody believes them, they're just power tripping

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This is manufactured outrage. Either by the company themselves to get more attention or by right wing media to paint leftists in a bad light to their audience. The best thing you can do either way is to just ignore it.

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Intentionally stoked outrage for profit? Yes. Manufactured outrage? No, I genuinely get very pissed whenever evil fuckers try to push eugenics, something that always happens every few years in the scientific community and needs to get shot down every time lest people think the ideas hold any validity.

It's not about the ad, it's the normalization of a very cruel and dangerous ideology. Ignoring it is just letting it fester and become normal. I would understand if you personally didn't care, but the hostility is really frustrating. This post even got a troll who got removed by mods, so it's not like these ideas have no power for fascists.

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So youre saying that you think this ad is legitimately pushing eugenics?

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yes. I'm sorry you can't recognize dog whistles

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So occams razor you think someone at a jeans company trying to covertly push the idea of eugenics is more likely than someone making a pun about genes sounding like jeans?

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's the rub; it is in fact a pun and a joke. It's a joke rooted in ideas that they're reinforcing. Jokes can be quite powerful in shaping norms simply because people think they're harmless. Humor works to disarm tension one might otherwise feel when having a normative viewpoint presented to them.

Minstrel shows were literally funny to both proud racists and people who simply weren't the targets of racism. They would find humor in black caricatures behaving like they weren't inherently inferior to white people, because the prevailing perspective was that they were inferior. People who didn't understand the humor could even laugh along, not knowing explicitly what they were laughing at, but absorbing the viewpoints all the same.

Not every example is so obvious, especially when crypto fascists are involved. The alt-right were masters at double layered jokes that work on both an offensive and non offensive level. I spent a lot of my teen years lurking in alt-right spaces on reddit, and it was enlightening how often some people missed the fact that they were in a fascist space. They were simply there for the normie humor; the jokes where the punchline wasn't just racism, but puns, social cringe, and dark humor.

So yes, the simplest answer isn't that the American Eagle advert accidentally looks like alt right humor.

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Lmao, no that absolutely is not the simplist answer.

Like for example if people at American Eagle were trying to push Eugenics, why wouldbt they have done so before? Is there litterally any other evidence they support Eugenics? Have any of them made any of other comments that are dog whistles? Have any of the execs donated to pro eugenjcs groups? Anything at all? Because otherwise the only thing you have a case for is some slight racism/bias about white people being the standard for beauty.

I genuinely dont mean this as an insult, but i think youre spending too much time in online leftist spaces and got a bit too caught up in the idea that everything is out to get you. I know what its like ive been there a few times and its disconnected me from reality a bit. Maybe now is a good time to take a break from social media/internet in general and recenter yourself. Living in this world is exhausting, especially when youre innsoaces that dont shy away from all the negativity in life.

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

why wouldbt they have done so before?

Does a political climate of concentration camps sponsored by Logitech mean nothing to you? Do you really think nothing big has changed in American politics in the past year?

I won't bother trying to convince you anymore because it's clear you'll never change your mind. Your faux concern "touch grass" bs is genuinely more annoying than the pro eugenics troll. At least that fucker had their eyes more open to how things actually are. You're just a useful fool for fascist tools.

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Because thats not how evidence works, were not talking about Logitec were talking about American Eagle. If you want to make a big claim like "American Eagle is intentionally pushing Eugenics" then you need something to back it up other than vague statements about the political climate and a pun.

Despite what you may feel my concern is genuine. Like i said ive been there. When you spend too much time in circles that talk about all the negstive things going on in the world all the time you get conditioned to think that bad stuff is everywhere and you start jumping at shadows, especially when other people are jumping at them too. Ive made my fair share of accusation that i looked back on and realised werent warrented, simply because i was in spaces that made me feel like the entire world was full of nothing but shitty people. And honestly its just really difficult living like that.

Too much social media is never good for you and IMO one of the most difficult parts of the modern wolrd is setting heslthy boundaries with the internet and having the self dicipline to stick to it. Honestly even if you dont change your mind about this, which is totally within your right, i really do encourage you to try tasking yourself with taking a break from socials for a week or more, I really do think it will make you feel less stressed. :)

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Dumb ad exec - "What if we did something like a pun on genes and jeans? We could get whatever it girl is hot right now with blue eyes because we sell blue jeans."

Another dumb ad exec - "But what if people think it's about eugenics, given the political climate right now?"

Dumb ad exec - "No way, people understand what a pun is."

The dumb public - "..."

[–] rainwall@piefed.social 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The ad execs published conversations they had with "syd." They asked explicitly if she was willing to "push the envelope" and she agreed that "they should go all the way lol."

Everyone involved in the ad absolutely knew it was a eugenics joke.

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Are you sure that's not referring to the run-of-the-mill sexual exploitation of young women that this industry is known for? Because there is a lot of that in the commercial for sure.

[–] rainwall@piefed.social 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

What's "pushing the envelope" about run-of-the-mill sexual exploitation? Your own descriptor points out how common it is.

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

watch the ad

What is this, 1990? Get one of them newfangled VCRs that skips them.