Sydney Sweeney and her publicist are likely experiencing a challenging morning. The controversy surrounding her American Eagle denim campaign shows no signs of abating, and now a number of TikTok users – including Doja Cat and a former American Eagle employee – have joined the discussion.

In case you missed it: the Euphoria actress’s denim campaign has been criticized for allegedly promoting Nazi propaganda, as it features the blonde actress boasting about her “good genes”.

Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle Campaign. (Credit: American Eagle)

“Yeah, this is just clear eugenicist propaganda. Y’all weren’t kidding at all,” commented one X user.

“The American Eagles ad wasn’t just a commercial. It was a love letter to white nationalism and eugenic fantasies, and Sydney Sweeney knew it,” another user remarked.

Some individuals believe the American Eagle campaign may be reminiscent of the controversial 1980 Calvin Klein ad featuring 15-year-old Brooke Shields.

In that original campaign, Shields wore a pair of jeans while delivering a line that also played on the jeans/genes pun. However, it is now primarily known for its gross oversexualization, particularly since she was underage at the time.

READ MORE

All The Celebrities Who Are Dragging The Folks Who Showed Face At Jeff Bezos’ $85M Wedding

Singer Doja Cat took to TikTok to mock the ad with a sarcastic, Southern accent.

“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are… bleee,” the singer quipped.

Check out the video for a laugh below:

Following this, a TikTok video emerged from a woman claiming to be the former social media manager of American Eagle, known as Hails (@haailss3) on the platform.

“It’s really hard not to be biased about this,” she began her video.

“All that the senior leadership wanted was to be better than Abercrombie. They didn’t really care about whether the product was good, whether it was a good representation of buying the product, they didn’t care about any of that.

“We were constantly comparing what the other brands were doing, who their talent was, what they were doing on social media, rather than talking to our markets and figuring out who was buying our products and what they wanted to see from us.”

She went on to mention that she overheard some “chatter” about the campaign before she left, revealing that it was initially intended to feature Reneé Rapp.

She felt the Mean Girls star was a much better choice as she’s “outspoken, she stands on business and she’s a queer woman”, while Sydney Sweeney has faced her own controversies in the past, including the time she hosted a MAGA-themed party for her family.

READ MORE

Sydney Sweeney’s Latest Campaign Is Sparking Claims Of ‘Nazi Propaganda’

“I was really surprised when I saw that Sydney Sweeney was the choice [for the campaign],” she said, adding that it’s a back-to-school campaign which makes the sexualized images even more “disturbing”.

She concluded her video by expressing her satisfaction that the internet is finally recognizing the lack of direction and social awareness within the American Eagle marketing legal team. She also recalled “many times” she and her team “shut down campaigns that should never see the light of day”.

“This campaign was a huge miss for more reasons than one,” she concluded. “This brand was desperate for a moment, and I don’t think it’s the one they were hoping for.”

In another corner of TikTok, chef and comedian Chef Tova (@cheftova) commented: “Sydney Sweeney is being accused of being a Nazi for implying that she has superior genes, but let’s be real, if the Jews didn’t run Hollywood, she would be making TikToks at the back of a Subaru right now, yelling at other women to stop using seed oils.”

Neither Sydney Sweeney nor American Eagle have responded to the backlash as of yet, but it’s likely that a clumsy non-apology is being drafted by both teams in a stuffy boardroom somewhere as we speak.