When American Eagle Outfitters released its Sydney Sweeney campaign this summer, no one expected a denim ad to ignite a national argument about America's cultural soul. The tagline, "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans", was meant to be a playful pun. Instead, it became a Rorschach test for where Americans really stand on inclusion. The campaign featured Sweeney, blonde, blue-eyed, and smiling in a classic jeans shoot. It followed the classic formula of fashion advertising: an attractive celebrity, minimal messaging, and nostalgia.
Yet within hours, "great genes" was trending on X, accused of flirting with eugenic overtones. Progressive critics decried the ad as tone-deaf and exclusionary; conservative media, meanwhile, applauded it as "refreshingly normal." This reaction reflects a broader pattern in which right-leaning audiences rally around campaigns that reaffirm traditional norms by opposing "excess of inclusivity". The right-wing backlash and the boycotts following Bud Light's partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney revealed how swiftly "traditional values" can turn exclusionary. The same pattern reappears across brands that retreat to nostalgic imagery: an aesthetic of belonging built on who is left out. In a culture primed to read politics into every frame, a pun was enough to spark a proxy war. Beyond the surface-level reactions online, another, far more surprising and measurable, response emerged. The market's reaction sharply contrasted the largely negative public sentiment, offering a tangible, quantitative verdict. While online critics called for boycotts and rushed to buy from rival brand Gap, whose concurrent campaign featured the diverse K-pop group Katseye, American Eagle's stock price surged 38 percent in the days following the uproar. It seems Wall Street voted with its wallet, not for progressive outrage but for provocative conservative ideals.
For much of the past decade, corporate America prided itself in flaunting its inclusivity. From Nike's Colin Kaepernick campaign to Budweiser's Pride cans, major brands sought to signal moral alignment with progressive causes. This era of "woke capitalism" promised that business could be both profitable and virtuous; that diversity, equity, and sustainability could double as a marketing strategy. This strategy worked—until it didn't. As inclusivity campaigns multiplied, scepticism grew. Many began to view such campaigns as insincere attempts to meet a "diversity quota." Disney's recent live-action releases sparked accusations of "reverse racism." What was meant to include everyone began to feel, to some, like it excluded the majority. Corporations now find themselves in a difficult position: how can they return to neutrality without appearing regressive?
Neutrality has become impossible. Every campaign carries ideological weight. "Woke" gestures are dismissed as performative; "traditional" imagery is labelled reactionary. A 2024 Columbia Business School study found that political ideology now predicts brand preference almost as strongly as age or income. Americans shop along partisan lines: "red brands" versus "blue brands". The middle ground has collapsed.
Our current capitalistic society only fuels this proxy war of politics. The market has always been a battle field for opposing ideologies, and victory was dependent on an empathetic demographic; so businesses tried to align themselves with the most people, by catering to a diverse audience. However, this numbers game of heads has become antiquated, as digital media now rewards outrage. Platforms like TikTok and X are built to amplify high-emotion content. A spark of anger is enough to flood for-you-pages. Brands, knowingly or not, benefit. The American Eagle controversy generated millions of impressions, far beyond the company's paid reach. Conservative outlets reframed it as cultural resistance while progressive ones condemned it as tone-deaf regression. Regardless, both sides served as unpaid advertising on a national scale. In an age where attention equals currency, provocation has become a marketing strategy. The Sydney Sweeney campaign may have been "backward", but strategically, it was genius. It played perfectly into the outrage economy; a system where every reaction, positive or negative, fuels engagement and drives sales.
As businesses swung to the left leading ideologies of diversity, they are now swinging back to right-leaning ideologies of exclusion, but this is not only due to the natural trend cycle. Current research shows that there are additional benefits of appealing to conservative sensibilities. Consumer satisfaction data shows that conservative consumers report higher levels of satisfaction and, as a result, demonstrate greater brand loyalty. Harvard Business Review adds that conservatives, compared to liberals, are more forgiving of product flaws. To marketers, that reads as stability. In other words, the conservative customer base is both emotionally and economically reliable. The progressive one, though more vocal online, may not translate to sustained spending. The incentives are obvious.
The Sydney Sweeney ad exemplifies this new reality. To critics, it was a coded message: a celebration of genetic privilege disguised as Americana. To conservative commentators, it was a welcome escape from what they see as corporate moralizing. A denim ad became a mirror reflecting two different American pasts: one haunted by exclusion and racism, the other nostalgic for an era when cultural icons looked one way— when Ariel, Snow White, and every fairytale princess was white.
The American Eagle advert doesn't necessarily prove that Americans have abandoned inclusion. It does, however, reveal how quickly ideals can be re-commodified. If the market rewards nostalgia and conservatism, corporate America will sell that instead, just as easily as it once sold progress. While we cannot fault the companies for quickly adapting to the wants of the public, we can criticize the ways they exploited diversity. Their quick swing toward "traditional" imagery suggests their shallow understanding of the necessity of diversity in the first place. The outrage over one ad, and the profits that followed, suggest that beneath our rhetoric of diversity and empathy lies a cultural conservatism that never disappeared: only went quiet when progressivism was profitable.
Katie Yoo is an economics student at Keio University and a writer passionate about connecting data with lived experience. Her work explores how law, culture, and communication shape the world economy. She believes opinion writing is not just about taking a stance, but about opening space for conversation and curiosity. She hopes to further her research on interdisciplinary issues bridging economics, policy, and society, and to continue writing pieces that translate complex ideas into accessible public dialogue.