Since 1875, blue jeans have been a staple in the American wardrobe. But now, choosing jeans has become picking a side in a cultural debate.
It’s just denim, until the internet decides it’s not.
From “Great Jeans” to “Better in Denim,” the line between questionable marketing and cultural controversy seems to be nonexistent. Online debates over the global girl group, KATSEYE, and American actor, Sydney Sweeney, raise questions about how marketing strategies can create backlash.
Two ads, two approaches.
On July 23, 2025, the clothing brand American Eagle released a series of jeans advertisements starring American actor Sydney Sweeney, best known for the HBO show “Euphoria.”
While the ads came in multiple variations, all featuring the phrase “Sydney Sweeney has Great Jeans,” the very first one went viral immediately, generating millions of views and thousands of comments within 24 hours.
The ad opens with Sweeney in a minimalist white space, dressed in blue jeans and a blue denim jacket, with the jacket buttoned low. The camera moves across her body in a slow, deliberate pan — a choice that emphasizes her figure — as she buttons up the jeans with one hand. Her voice is calm and flat: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color.”
The final shot cuts to a close-up of her face as she delivers her last line: “My jeans are blue.” The text “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” then pops up across the screen.
The ad blew up almost instantly, with one clip of the ad on Instagram posted by the official American Eagle page receiving over 1.1 million views upon being released. Many people started noting the play on words, between “good jeans” and “good genes.” This tag line was interpreted by many as promoting eugenics, the practice of controlling the population through selective breeding.
Historically, this has promoted the reproduction of people with so-called desirable traits, traits that many people argue that Sweeney has: blonde hair, white skin, a thin frame, blue eyes and being conventionally pretty.
Eugenics, a term coined in 1883 by Francis Galton, became infamously associated with Nazi Germany, where it was central to their propaganda and genocidal ideology. The Nazis favored what are called Aryan features, which described Nordic-based physical traits.
Anyone who had all or any of those traits was considered to be the most ideal person to be reproduced. And conversely, anyone who didn’t look like that was inferior.
U.S. History teacher Mr. Jacob Ferrin sees clear eugenics messaging in the ad. He also noted that the use of race, gender and genes in product promotion is not new.
“Big corporations live and die on politics,” he said. “Every campaign is a gamble on which audiences will buy certain products, and it all comes down to differences in beliefs and politics. For example, back in the minstrel times, songs like ‘Turkey in the Straw’ were marketed using race, eugenics and harmful stereotypes about black people. This just shows how identity and stereotypes have made their way into marketing strategies.”
American Eagle and Sweeney faced widespread backlash across the internet, accused of objectifying women and promoting Nazi propaganda. One tweet by user “zellieimani” on the popular social media platform, X, said: “The American Eagle ad wasn’t just a commercial. It was a love letter to white nationalism and eugenic fantasies, and Sydney Sweeney knew it.”
The tweet gained over 1,000 replies, with the majority agreeing with the statement and criticizing Sweeney and American Eagle.
Shortly afterwards, the clothing company Gap released a 90-second “Better in Denim” ad starring KATSEYE, a six-member global girl group that took the world by storm earlier in the year.
Contrary to Sweeney’s ad, KATSEYE’s ad was high-energy and colorful. The members of KATSEYE dance in synchronized choreography, wearing head-to-toe denim outfits in different washes — medium, light, dark and even a pop of white through body suits and accessories.
The camera cuts quickly between wide shots of the full group and close-ups of each member’s “killer” facial expressions, all set to the song “Milkshake” by Kelis. The editing is fast-paced, matching the upbeat energy of the song. Only three days after being released, the video hit 400 million views across all platforms.
This isn’t the first time Gap has featured artists and clever choreography in their ads. Just a year before, Gap released a denim ad with pop star Troye Sivan featuring group choreography to the song “Funny Thing” by Thundercat. That campaign exceeded 1.5 million views.
Still, it couldn’t compare to the mass success of KATSEYE’s “Better in Denim” ad.
According to Gap, the KATSEYE campaign gave the company a 4% increase in sales in the second quarter, the largest boost in almost a decade. Gap also released an exclusive KATSEYE x Gap hoodie in several different colors to go with the campaign.
The online sales of the hoodie sold out within hours. The dance itself went viral too, with roughly 169,100 viewers using the “Milkshake” sound on TikTok to dance along to the group’s choreography.
At the MTV Music Awards this September, after KATSEYE received a VMA music award for their song “Touch,” Entertainment Tonight interviewed the group on the success of the Gap ad and what it meant to them.
Lara Raj, the group’s main vocalist, stated that she gets emotional thinking about the success of the advertisement.
“KATSEYE was created with the purpose of representing our people,” Raj said. “And Gap gave us just the platform to do that.”
Both Gap and KATSEYE were praised by the internet for their diversity, movement and authenticity, with users on TikTok claiming the Gap ad was everything the American Eagle ad was trying to be. Some publications such as Yahoo Entertainment would call Gap’s ad a response to American Eagle’s, saying it was a “not so subtle” jab at American Eagle with the lyric, “It’s better than yours.”
While the sheer amount of time it takes to craft a successful advertisement — factoring in outfits, background dancers and choreo — makes it unlikely that that’d be the case, the situation nevertheless created plenty of media attention.
Sophomore Eli Augustine felt that both ads had achieved the same goal — getting people to talk about it — but in different ways.
“The Sydney Sweeney ad certainly grabbed people’s attention and even though it received a lot of backlash from the internet, it still left a clear impression on those who had viewed it,” Augustine said. “No matter how I felt about the ad, I was still talking about it, which was the end goal of both.”
Whether people were criticizing American Eagle’s ad or not, their campaign’s takeover of internet headlines suggests widespread backlash may have been part of the company’s marketing strategy all along.
According to Alpha Spread, a stock evaluation platform, American Eagle shares went up about 18% after the release of the ad. Furthermore, it sparked conversations about what lengths companies should be willing to go to in order to promote their products.
Sophomore Betty Tallman holds her own opinions on what makes an ad stand out.
“What makes a good marketing strategy is promoting a product without the audience realizing that what they’re watching is an advertisement,” Tallman said. “What was so smart with the KATSEYE ad was that they were marketing their denim by dancing in it, showcasing that Gap’s denim is so comfortable and ergonomic that they can stretch and dance in it.”
There is no doubt that both of these advertisements had an effect on the entertainment industry. Even Gap’s CEO, Richard Dickson, in a recent Gap earnings call, called the ad a “cultural takeover.”
Ultimately, the “denim debate” isn’t just about jeans. It’s about how far companies are willing to go to get attention.
Two ads released weeks apart. One featured a white woman making a pun about genes. The other featured a diverse group dancing joyfully in colorful denim. Both went viral. Both sold jeans. But only one sparked accusations of promoting eugenics, while the other was celebrated for representation.
The difference wasn’t just the denim. It was everything surrounding it: the casting, the choreography, the cultural moment. Today every ad is dissected frame-by-frame on social media, so companies can’t just sell products any more. They’re selling values, identity and a vision of who should wear their clothing. And audiences are watching closely.
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2025 print edition.
