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The Sydney Sweeney Ad Actually IS That Bad · The imuRgency Room

0:00
The reaction to Sidney. Sweeney's new American Eagle
0:02
campaign really highlights a widening ideological distance
0:05
between young men. And young woman?
0:07
The aspects I haven't seen anyone talk about with this
0:09
story is the fact that American Eagle's CEO has been involved
0:11
with helping to fund ethnic cleansing for years.
0:14
I want to circle back to that, but first I want to start by
0:16
talking to the people who are more so in the middle or
0:18
wondering why this is even being talked about like that.
0:20
I would start by asking the question, well, if there are
0:22
great genes, what do bad genes look?
0:24
Like when the White House decides to step out and make a
0:26
statement on your behalf defending your eugenics ad baby,
0:32
this is your brand now, American Eagle, this is you.
0:36
Sydney Sweeney, American Eagle and oddly the 1930s.
0:40
Why are people using the words eugenics, Sydney Sweeney and
0:43
American Eagle all in the same sentence?
0:45
And what exactly this means for the current and future state of
0:48
advertising in America? Yeah, we have a lot to talk
0:51
about. Hey, guys, it's Emergency and
0:52
welcome. Welcome back to my channel.
0:54
Let's start this off by a big disclaimer because I want to
0:57
make sure that the intentions of this video are clear because I
1:00
know this conversation around this topic has exploded into
1:04
something completely different, are not necessarily different,
1:08
but like has gotten to a scale where now I feel like there's a
1:11
little bit of gaslighting going on.
1:12
And I want to make sure I let you know, regardless of where
1:14
you stand politically, this video and this space is more for
1:19
a conversation. Whether you agree with all part
1:21
or none of what I say. My goal here is to have you
1:24
click away from this video hearing a new perspective
1:26
because I know we live in quite polarizing times.
1:28
And a lot of things in this discussion outside of the root
1:31
of this discussion have been even more so polarizing and
1:35
turning a lot of people off when I think this is a great
1:37
opportunity need to pull people together.
1:39
So if for whatever reason that disclaimer spooked, scared or
1:42
just confused you because you don't know what's going on,
1:45
Well, recently our branded queen, Sidney Sweeney has has
1:48
gotten in quite the controversy because she has recently
1:51
collapsed with the brand American Eagle.
1:53
You know, the good old American brand we used to shop at when we
1:55
were teenagers. Well, at least I did.
1:57
I had like a big American Eagle phase back in high school, but
1:59
like after high school, I kind of dropped them.
2:00
But that's besides the point. American Eagle and Sidney
2:02
Sweeney have gotten into a bit of a kerfuffle online because of
2:06
this set of ads. I bet you want to try these
2:09
jeans. Sydney Sweeney has very jeans.
2:13
Jeans are passed down from parents to offspring, often
2:16
determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye
2:21
color. My jeans are blue.
2:24
Sydney Sweeney has great jeans. I'm not here to tell you to buy
2:28
American Eagle jeans, and I definitely won't say that
2:32
they're the most comfortable jeans I've ever worn or that
2:36
they make your butt look amazing.
2:41
Why would I need to do that? But if you said that you want to
2:44
buy the jeans, I'm not going to stop you.
2:47
But just so we're clear, this is not me telling you to buy
2:51
American Eagle jeans. Sweeney has very keen you.
2:55
See what I did there? Right.
2:56
Now class, I'll turn the mic over to you really quick.
2:58
What do you think when you see these ads?
3:00
Oh my God, Denise Sweeney said another ad.
3:02
Why is she talking like that? Wow, she looks so tea in these
3:05
jeans. Why does this kind of sound like
3:07
a eugenic dog whistle? Yeah, there are quite a few
3:12
things that can be considered off putting in this set of ads
3:15
and people online have been very proactive in calling out some of
3:17
those things that are off putting.
3:19
And honestly, one of the main reasons why I decided to make
3:21
this video was because of the eugenics coded language of the
3:25
advertisement. The tagline and basis of this
3:27
collaboration is Sydney Sweeney has great genes with the play on
3:31
words of genes being the denim genes and also the genetic
3:35
genes, all in order to promote their American Eagle denim
3:38
collection. And people have taken issue with
3:39
this given the context of the times that we currently live in
3:42
specifically because if you are looking into that context, we're
3:45
seeing things like the rise of fascism and like fascist speech
3:47
in our media. Like I just made a video talking
3:50
about how Jubilee's like platforming actual fascist on
3:53
their show. Like which I do want to add a
3:54
disclaimer since people have been commenting on it.
3:56
When I say like the rise of conservatism, I don't inherently
3:59
mean like all conservatives are bad.
4:02
I just mean the way that we've been moving with this
4:04
conservative push has been bad and the uptick and things like
4:07
blatant racism, which has made people look a little deeper into
4:10
this ad. And I mean, honestly, in my
4:12
opinion, you don't need to look that deeply into what it means
4:15
to say that Sidney Sweeney has great genes, especially
4:17
considering in some of the ads, the genes actually never make it
4:20
fully in the frame of the ad or just aren't the most well
4:24
fitting pair of jeans. And when you look at CD Sweeney,
4:26
what do you see? You see a beautiful,
4:27
conventionally interactive white girl with a full figure, blonde
4:30
hair, blue eyes. And I want to say this right
4:32
here because I've been seeing a lot of discourse online kind of
4:34
misconstrue why people are getting concerned about this ad
4:37
and want to be like and want to rightly be like.
4:39
Alright American Eagle with the was this ad.
4:42
No one is mad at the fact that Sidney Sweeney is a beautiful
4:44
white woman. Again this conversation has
4:45
exploded and now like we have the actual White House coming in
4:48
and commenting on this. No one has a problem that the
4:50
fact that Sidney Sweeney is the face of this and no like America
4:53
isn't under attack is the fact that the ad literally says like
4:56
Sidney Sweeney has good genes, knowingly playing on the phrase
4:59
you have good genes thus implying that there are good
5:02
genes and bad genes. Concept of good genes and bad
5:04
genes when it comes to someone that looks like Sidney Sweeney
5:06
have had this rhetoric seen before in the times like the
5:09
1930s, if you catch my drift. And the term eugenics has been
5:12
thrown around a lot, which I feel like is a very sensitive
5:15
word because, you know, it carries a lot of weight with it.
5:17
There are people being like, oh wow, that's that's a lot.
5:19
Why are people throwing around this word eugenics like it
5:22
sounds like people just learned it once and are running with it.
5:24
Well, let's actually breakdown what eugenics is and kind of
5:27
help explain why people are coming to this conclusion.
5:29
According to the National Human Genome Research Institute,
5:32
eugenics is defined as the scientifically erroneous and
5:34
immoral theory of racial improvement and planned breeding
5:38
which gain popularity during the early 20th century.
5:40
Eugenicis world. Why?
5:41
I believe that they could perfect human beings and
5:43
eliminate so-called social ills through genetics and heredity.
5:47
They believe that the use of methods such as involuntary
5:49
sterilization, segregation, and social exclusion would rid the
5:52
Society of individuals deemed by them to be unfit.
5:55
Eugenic theories and scientific racism drew support from
5:59
contemporary xenophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism,
6:01
colonialism and imperialism, as well as justifications of
6:05
slavery, particularly in the United States.
6:07
Wow, that's a lot. Basically, this means that in
6:09
eugenics, there exists A belief between good, bad, and in this
6:13
case, great genes, some that make you DNA wise superior to
6:16
others, which in my opinion is both insane and immoral and has
6:19
been used as a justification for things like white supremacy in
6:22
the past. And like I was saying before,
6:23
the implication of great genes implies the existence of bad
6:27
genes, which again, historically has been used to justify things
6:30
like slavery, discrimination and things like imperialism.
6:33
And I know again, I already hear the people saying like, OK, this
6:35
is a stretch. They're just talking about them.
6:36
They're talking about genes. And while yes, and the surface
6:38
are talking about genes, as we're going to talk about more
6:40
in this video, there are many different ways to go about this
6:42
campaign and to promote the denim, to promote the genes.
6:44
But to do it in this very specific way with this specific
6:47
person in this specific time period, we do have to take a
6:50
closer look at this. Like we should be skeptical and
6:52
concerned when we see language like this because language like
6:54
this is usually a dog whistle. And again, to define dog whistle
6:56
to garner support from a particular group without
6:58
provoking opposition. It's like where you blow into a
7:00
dog whistle and like dogs can hear it, understand it, but like
7:03
people can't. So when we have dog whistles
7:05
like good and bad genes, your ears should perk up because it's
7:08
like, what are we talking about here?
7:10
The aspects I haven't seen talk about with this story is the
7:13
fact that American Eagles CEO has been involved with helping
7:15
to fund ethnic cleansing for years.
7:17
I want to circle back to that, but first I want to start by
7:19
talking to the people who are more so in the middle or
7:21
wondering why this is even being talked about like that.
7:24
I would start by asking the question, well, if there are
7:26
great genes, what do bad genes look like?
7:27
One thing that we shouldn't do as adults with fully functional
7:30
brains is pretend that context does not exist.
7:32
The president campaigning for example, and going into a rant
7:35
about immigration and talking about how there are a lot of bad
7:38
genes in our country. The president who has brought up
7:40
the racehorse theory, which is to directly related to eugenics
7:42
to an all white crowd before done a rally in Minnesota.
7:45
He said you have good genes. You know that right?
7:47
You have good genes. A lot of it's about the genes,
7:49
isn't it? Don't you believe it, the
7:50
racehorse theory, You think we're so different.
7:53
You have good genes in Minnesota.
7:55
A lot of Jewish historians came out after this and said, hey, we
7:57
recognize that rhetoric and we know what the racehorse theory
8:00
is. Erica is generally too stupid to
8:02
recognize this, or too hateful to care.
8:04
Especially considering we've had powerful figures like the
8:06
current president speak on groups like immigrants as having
8:09
bad genes and again, this sort of language of genes.
8:11
This has always been used to be historically harmful xenophobic
8:14
rhetoric. And using a true blue eyed
8:16
blonde American beauty is no accident when you're pushing
8:19
this messaging or at least doesn't read that way,
8:21
especially in today's socio political climate.
8:23
Or we've had the Trump administration and those
8:25
affiliated use similar beverage as well.
8:27
It just looks spooky. Meanwhile, yes, American Eagle
8:29
is the brand that is behind all of this and approved all of this
8:32
and we will be talking about them more specifically soon.
8:35
The Internet has been getting on Sydney Sweeney a lot because
8:37
this ad kind of feels like it missed the mark.
8:39
It comes in the back of a string of ads that Sydney Sweeney has.
8:41
It's been recently where it just seems like, who are you
8:43
advertising for? What is this pivot?
8:45
Because Cindy initially came on the scene as Cassie and
8:47
Euphoria, and that really blew her up as a potential eight
8:49
girl. But she was heavily sexualized
8:51
in that series, to the point where she even stated in
8:53
interviews that she was tired of being sexualized for her chest.
8:55
My body's composition is determined by my genes.
9:00
Hey, eyes appear. Cindy's Tweeny Hasburg genes.
9:08
And I totally understand that. But now it seems like there is
9:11
like this regressive pivot where a lot of the collabs and ads
9:14
that she does now really do bank on that factor.
9:17
Or even one of the ads for American Eagle just focuses on
9:19
her chest and like pans down, not really even showing the
9:21
jeans in question. And it's been making people
9:23
wonder, like, girl, can you say no to at least one of these ads,
9:26
please? When the White House decides to
9:28
step out and make a statement on your behalf defending your
9:32
eugenics ad baby, this is your brand now, American Eagle, this
9:38
is you. And there's no turning back from
9:41
this branding and no amount of, like, performative ads in the
9:46
future with people of color are going to make us forget.
9:50
And here's the direct statement from the White House
9:52
communications director on this. And I don't know, at least
9:55
personally, I would look at things twice and maybe wonder
9:58
what side of history I'm on if I have the current White House
10:01
backing me. It's like kind of like that
10:02
whole thing of like the feeling when the worst person you know
10:04
defends you. But now let's talk a little bit
10:06
about the history of Sydney Sweeney's advertisements because
10:08
I do feel like they tell a story more so for the fact of like,
10:11
how do we get here and who are these ads really for?
10:14
And if there's one thing we can assume about Sydney Sweeney is
10:16
that she is getting paid OK because she stays with a brand
10:20
deal and her range for these sponsorships and brand deals are
10:23
best. She's been a brand ambassador
10:24
multiple times for seemingly anything and everything.
10:27
After her role in Euphoria, I think the first thing I remember
10:29
her being in the brand ambassador for was Lineage,
10:32
which I mean, like, yeah, period beauty brand.
10:34
That's a great first start. I also remember she had a thing
10:36
with By Water, which is also cool.
10:38
That's tea. But then I remember the shifts
10:39
were like brands like Lineage and By Water, which are
10:42
typically brands that advertise more towards women, to brands
10:45
like Hey Dude shoes like a 4X Dickies collab and more
10:48
obviously with Doctor Squatch selling bathwater soap.
10:52
And I I'm never above a good sponsorship deal.
10:55
OK. I mean, yeah, I love a good ad,
10:57
but you got to make sure the ad makes sense, you know, because
11:00
before American Eagle, her recent ad with Doctor Squatch
11:02
brought about a lot of Internet discourse because she was
11:04
selling a limited edition men's soap of her bathwater.
11:07
I mean, probably not her actual bathwater because you don't the
11:10
FDA. But for just $8 you could buy
11:11
Sydney's Bathwater Bliss in the scent.
11:14
And I could you not morning would.
11:16
And you even have people like the senior vice president of
11:18
Doctor Squatch going forward and saying things like the bar is
11:20
bizarre, unexpected and meant to get guys thinking more deeply
11:23
about what they're putting on their bodies, whatever that
11:26
means. And that, of course, did spark
11:28
its own Internet discourse for a while.
11:30
And after that died down, we got to where we are now with the
11:33
Aryan Eagle. I mean, American Eagle
11:36
advertisement. And like, the main question I
11:37
have about this whole thing is, like, who is this for?
11:40
I mean, the bath water is pretty obvious.
11:41
But like, for American Eagle, at the end of the day, the jeans
11:43
that she's wearing are women's jeans.
11:44
And demographic studies show that like women, especially
11:47
younger women have been tending to lead more liberal whereas men
11:50
learn more conservative. So personally, I doubt that like
11:53
baby talking's mising and genetics dog whistles are really
11:57
selling this products to women. I mean, perhaps it could be that
12:01
this campaign is trying to market towards that demographic
12:03
of women that would find this cool, find it like inspiring
12:07
that I want to look like Sydney. I want to have good genes like
12:09
Sydney. But I don't know even then, like
12:11
marketing wise, especially towards Gen.
12:13
Z woman, I feel like this is kind of a flop and at least
12:16
alienating a big chunk of your audience.
12:18
No, actually, maybe not based on how American Eagle stocks have
12:21
been doing recently. And this is sort of the crux of
12:23
it all, because I really don't think that like the ad was meant
12:25
to be just taken in stride. I feel like they were definitely
12:28
banking on the fact that people would be outraged by this.
12:32
And when would use outrage marketing to their benefit?
12:34
Because we see outrage marketing done all the time.
12:36
I just don't know if we've seen it recently to this extreme with
12:39
such a major brand. And I think the last time we've
12:41
seen something similar to this was with the old Brooke Shields
12:45
Calvin Klein campaign. And if you're unfamiliar with
12:47
that, Brooke Shields did a campaign with Calvin Klein when
12:49
she was 15 years old. You want to know what comes
12:54
between me and my Calvins? Nothing, Calvin.
12:59
Beautiful. So that's.
13:02
What happened to me? I've been Calvinized was going
13:05
to be and this one actually was pretty similar because it was
13:08
also a jeans ad or the ad uses the play on words of like jeans
13:11
in like jeans while instead of having say nice, we need a grown
13:15
adult. You have Brooke Shields, a minor
13:17
at the time and having her pose in weird or disturbing positions
13:20
and using some double entendre phrases to make the situation
13:23
even more strange. And a little background for
13:26
those of you that aren't familiar with Brooke Shields.
13:27
She's an American actress who was highly and heavily
13:31
sexualized at a young age, which of course is PDF philic and
13:35
exploitative at the time. She was seen as the American
13:38
beauty of the 80s but with blue eyes, fair skin, that ski slope
13:42
nose and just so heartbreaking to see interviews with her
13:45
because her sexuality, namely her brigidity is brought up
13:47
oftentimes much older white men. So I really feel for her.
13:50
And she has a whole documentary talking about this era called
13:53
Pretty Baby Brooke Shields where she gives her first hand account
13:55
about everything that happened in retrospectively looking back,
13:57
yes, the Calvin Klein ads were definitely controversial when
14:00
they came out, but not necessarily for the same
14:02
reasons. For example, now we look back at
14:04
we see a company using a child to sell jeans while making
14:06
sexual double entendres, and we know now that that's wrong.
14:10
And again, in this case, this isn't just like, speculation or
14:12
just like Internet war. Brooke herself has come forward.
14:14
And it's like, yeah, this was weird.
14:16
And she didn't understand the time that it was inherently
14:19
sexual because she was a child. Because of that, she received a
14:22
lot of backlash because of that because you know how the world
14:24
works when it comes to things like hating women, even if
14:26
they're minors. And the reason I bring this up
14:28
is because, again, there are similar ad campaigns where the
14:30
company is just doing weird stuff.
14:33
The difference here though, is that Brooke Shields was a child
14:36
at the time of filming the city. Sweeney, not so much.
14:38
That's a grown woman In her book.
14:40
Any of you talking about the campaign?
14:41
She says that the controversy behind the actual campaign made
14:45
it the success that it was. Which is why I bring this whole
14:47
point up is because for American Eagle, it's very likely that
14:50
they decided to reheat copping clients nachos and banking on
14:53
the fact that the controversy of you giants dog whistles could
14:57
blow the ad up into major conversation like it has and
15:00
boost awareness and cause sales to go up, or at least the stock
15:04
to go up, because that's what they're looking like.
15:06
And that just doesn't sit well with me personally, because why
15:08
would you use a manufacturer controversy like that to sell a
15:11
product? Like if your products that to
15:13
you shouldn't have to bank on, I don't know, exploiting minors or
15:16
like pandering to white supremacists to actually get
15:19
people to notice your product and buy your product.
15:21
My jeans are blue. Well.
15:22
Let's also go into the deeper meaning of blue blood is in
15:26
reference to you being so purely white, you can see your blue
15:30
veins of blood. Now, if we don't look at it from
15:32
a white nationalistic perspective, we can also find
15:35
that the ad is very similar to the Calvin Klein ad of Brooke
15:39
Shields when she was 15 years old.
15:40
You know, the problematic ad that sexualized a teenager.
15:43
But this isn't the only ad Sydney's been in.
15:46
If you go around Sephora or department stores, you'll see
15:49
her everywhere. Why is she being pushed down our
15:52
throats so hard? One thing behind pushing people
15:54
are PR companies. What was the PR company behind
15:56
this American Eagle ad? Shadow PR.
15:59
This is Brad Seifman, who's the CEO of Shadow now.
16:02
Luckily, I've been watching Brad for a while.
16:03
What have his stories been like for the past two years?
16:07
A lot of things about Shadow PR are making sense now.
16:10
American Eagle themselves, after October 7th, put up a billboard
16:14
in Times Square so that no one would be confused about where
16:17
they stand. The CEO of American Eagle
16:19
himself has given money to Netanyahu's campaign Super PAC's
16:22
for Republicans, and his sisters tried to sue him for how he's
16:26
been allocating business funds. It's time to really dig a little
16:29
bit deeper here. Like when it comes to American
16:31
Eagle, you have the CEO of the company, avid Trump supporter.
16:34
Are we surprised? No, and it has Netanyahu when if
16:37
you've been paying attention to anything that's been going on
16:39
with those two, specifically in terms of ethics in treating
16:42
minorities that they deemed to be the enemy, there is something
16:45
to be said there. And no, I'm not saying that he
16:47
was in the marketing department during that meeting where
16:50
they're deciding what to really make of this campaign.
16:53
It makes sense that the CEO's values align and match some of
16:57
the messaging here. Like this set of ads are really
16:59
does seem like a feeler, like testing the waters to see like
17:01
what messaging can people get away with with a moderate sense
17:04
of plausible deniability? And again, there have always
17:07
been cases of crazy marketing tactics, especially ads that
17:10
really push the line. But I think this Adam project is
17:12
that it feels like a dangerous marketing precedent.
17:14
We can dance around things like eugenics and ultimately white
17:18
nationalist rhetoric so cavalierly and then go ahead
17:21
when people bring this up being like, hey, this is kind of weird
17:23
to make them seem like they're stretching, overreaching and
17:26
doing the most, which again is the goal in intent of thing of
17:30
things like dog whistles. It's that plausible deniability
17:32
and using harmful rhetoric or allusions to rhetoric to
17:34
manufacture outrage just for the sake of brand visibility is
17:37
nasty work because it's seriously a dangerous precedent
17:40
decide and also just generally wild sentiments to normalize.
17:43
And like, yes, this is just one series of ads, but it does not
17:46
just exist. It's just that context people
17:48
not in a vacuum. I am so sorry.
17:51
Seeing advertisements like this pushing the subliminal that
17:53
blonde eye blue air girls have good genes is just wild
17:56
generally, but also considering the times we are currently
18:00
living in. And again, this isn't to say
18:01
that there is anything wrong with being blonde haired and
18:03
blue eyes, it's just the fact that you have to acknowledge
18:06
that, pedestalizing that and referencing that as good genes
18:10
is making a statement, especially in the context of the
18:12
times we're leaving in now where we're really pushing towards
18:15
traditionalism and the good old days.
18:17
When you look back at those old days that were allegedly good,
18:20
the status quo was very much that the blonde hair, blue eyes,
18:23
they were considered to be the most desirable and superior.
18:26
And you also have to take a look at what was going on to everyone
18:29
else that was not that at the time.
18:31
Because as much as people want to try and forget, like those
18:34
times were not that long ago, and especially in times as
18:37
regressive as these, people seem to not realize that regression
18:41
is a lot easier and a lot faster than any form of progress.
18:44
And getting back to this, advertisements at the end of the
18:46
day can and have been used as propaganda.
18:49
And it's possible that we're seeing them used as such here.
18:51
Like, let's just say for the sake of argument that this is
18:53
intentional rage bait and was truly meant to just mean genes.
18:56
We're just talking about genes here.
18:58
Maybe they're being a little cheeky, a little tongue in
19:00
cheek, but just rage bait, nothing further.
19:02
This would still have to go through so many eyes, so many
19:06
multiple meetings, especially as we mentioned before, having the
19:08
reference of ads that went too far, like the Calvin Klein ad.
19:12
You're keeping all these things in mind when you're making these
19:14
decisions. So this is a very intentional
19:16
act regardless. And it makes you have to ask,
19:18
like, is this an OK marketing strategy?
19:20
Like, yeah, fear and anger are strong emotions that drive
19:23
people to make decisions like buying or not.
19:25
But like, is it really worth going that far?
19:27
Like we see all the time influencers, content creators
19:29
and like doing stuff like this for clicks, likes and views
19:32
saying the most outlandish things being the harbors and the
19:35
promoters of different pipelines, ideologies and
19:38
problematic rhetoric. But should brands and
19:41
corporations using the same tactics for their marketing to
19:44
push the bottom line? And honestly, one of the
19:46
pitfalls of rage baiting or just general divisive commercials
19:48
like this is that people who are moderate aren't super in tune
19:51
with the context, can look at people who are scrutinizing this
19:54
ad and can come to the conclusion that it's like not
19:57
that deep or that people are doing too much.
19:58
The left, the sensitive and use the left sword, just general
20:01
people's more critical behavior as a catalyst to say that
20:04
they're pushing people farther to the right.
20:06
And this isn't to say that all people to the right and all
20:08
moderates, conservatives, whatever, don't critically think
20:10
like, that's not the point at all.
20:11
I'm saying that like the left has a pattern of looking very
20:14
deeply into things and sort of sitting on a moral high horse.
20:17
A lot of times it shows really unfortunate in times like this
20:19
where it is so distinct or we're seeing messaging like this that
20:24
is genuinely so harmful and not general debate and conjecture
20:27
being used as a cop out to like. Disregard all of this because
20:30
this is really serious and can set us up for some really tricky
20:33
territory. Like unfortunately it feels like
20:34
we are going back. Like in the case of the American
20:37
Eagle ad, it's true that they're trying to play into the whole
20:39
blue blood Americana nostalgia. And you add the genetics and
20:43
eugenics part of all of that and it gets really scary really
20:46
quick. And unfortunately, we're not
20:47
just seeing this with ads like this whole old Americana
20:50
aesthetic. The visual is the nostalgia that
20:52
has been going on both in our advertisement and in media can
20:55
also be a slippery slope because things again, don't exist in a
20:58
vacuum. Like, for example, let's talk
20:59
about some other aesthetics. Let's talk about some of these
21:01
aesthetics that have made rounds recently for being a little too
21:06
real. First and foremost, Sabrina
21:07
Carpenter. This has been a conversation for
21:09
a while, so I'm not going to touch on that a whole bunch.
21:11
Love short and sweet, love Sabrina down.
21:13
She's known in her recent era as doing a lot of throwback
21:15
material and in terms of these 60s and 70s aesthetic and also
21:18
got a lot of that like outrage marketing from her album cover
21:21
where she is on all fours with seemingly a man holding her hair
21:24
and the album title being man's best friend in a post Roe B Wade
21:27
world and having things like DEI shook away and demonize that.
21:31
It doesn't necessarily hit or feel right to have an album
21:35
called Man's Best Friend where it seems like you are submitting
21:37
to a man in the album cover. Especially considering the whole
21:40
time period vibe that has been going on with that album with it
21:43
being during a time where there were less rights for women.
21:46
And I don't think we should condemn Sabrina Carpenter at all
21:48
for this whole visual things. The album hasn't come out yet
21:50
and we haven't seen like what actually is in it.
21:52
But it did 'cause some side eyes.
21:53
You also have another bigger offender, but not as mainstream
21:56
popular. But also getting into scandal is
21:58
the artist Jesse Murph. She wasn't super familiar with
22:00
her until actually very recently, but she's gotten into
22:02
some controversy because of the lyrics in one of her songs
22:04
called 1965. And let's just read some of
22:06
them. I want you to want me.
22:08
I think I'd give up a few rights if you would just love me like
22:11
it's 1965. I might get a little slap slap,
22:13
but she wouldn't hit me on Snapchat.
22:15
What are we talking about? The potential double entendre to
22:17
that last one about like DV wild.
22:20
And I do think the messaging of all this combined is wild
22:23
considering the times that we are in and entering.
22:25
Like, what are we actually talking about?
22:26
We've actually lost the plot here.
22:28
I feel like so many things are happening sequentially or it's
22:31
really showing that we do not exist in a vacuum.
22:34
A lot of these things are very similar and the fact they're all
22:36
happening within the same time period is really showing like
22:38
where we're at as a culture. Like, yes, it's fun to partake
22:41
in like 60s fashion and like the 60s aesthetic because clothes
22:45
are fine, music was fine, but why does it have to come with
22:47
repackaged antiquated beliefs? You know, like that's the main
22:50
thing here. And that's just like the through
22:51
line through all this. Like with the AE ad, with the
22:53
man's best friend, with the Jesse Murph songs.
22:56
These are all things that seem innocuous on the surface or not.
22:59
It's a fun aesthetic until you realize all three are compiled
23:01
at the same time as a increasingly conservative
23:04
administration is in power and now we're talking about good
23:07
preferable genes and giving up rights to a man and even
23:10
breaking news because this actually happened into filming.
23:13
If this seems like two women focused, I already see comments
23:15
being like oh This is why you people just hate beautiful white
23:19
women. OK relax.
23:20
But the genetics talks have come back again with Dunkin' Donuts
23:22
because there was a recent ad with one of those actors from
23:25
the summer I turn pretty talking about genetics which was like
23:28
art. Why is the theme like this isn't
23:30
just a one off thing and like why are we talking about genes?
23:33
Because there is nothing about Dunkin' Donuts that has to do
23:35
with genetics or genes or anything.
23:37
Like I didn't ask to be the king of summer.
23:39
It just kind of happened, this tan genetics.
23:44
There's no way. If you guys don't know who this
23:46
is, This is the actor from the summer I turned pretty.
23:49
He's literally been in such hot water the last two weeks for
23:52
being MAGA and liking and reposting.
23:55
Homophobic, transphobic like questionable and Duncan just
24:01
dropped this out 11 hours ago talking about his genetics.
24:04
Another white blonde hair blue eye.
24:06
I'm going to admit this could totally be the Bader Meinhof
24:10
phenomenon where like you talk about something or you see a
24:13
word and now you see it everywhere.
24:18
And, and by no means is this giving the Sidney Sweeney
24:20
American Eagle ad, but yo, the odds of two white blonde hair,
24:27
blue eye MAGA celebrities in ads back-to-back talking about
24:35
genetics, talking about genetics.
24:38
It's weird. It's weird.
24:40
I'm not going to do a whole analysis like I did with the
24:42
Sidney Sweeney ad because that was like a more intellectual
24:44
conversation, but this is weird. He's lucky he's Italian and he's
24:49
talking about his tan or else I feel like the comparison would
24:52
be like on nose but this, it stinks.
24:57
Like, things are getting weird. I guess I just want to say that
25:01
pop culture and advertisements are the general public's
25:03
harbinger for what is the norm, what is the status quo, and what
25:06
is generally in the zeitgeist. It's a way to temperature check
25:09
what ideology is popular at the time.
25:11
It's how we go ahead and retroactively like study where
25:14
culture was at in the past, by what musical they're consuming,
25:16
what media they're consuming, what their advertisements look
25:18
like. And it's also a way to temp
25:20
check which ideologies are allowed to be put out there and
25:23
are OK to dog whistle. Like even the AE ad alone was
25:26
enough to make people uncomfortable with the whole
25:27
eugenics. But to combine that with all the
25:29
other ads and media going on right now, it really is starting
25:32
to tell a story. Like is this whole thing too
25:34
woke? Or is this just critically
25:35
analyzing the media put before us and the advertisements put
25:38
before us that we're consuming on a daily basis, showing us
25:40
what to buy, what to prioritize, and what we should be inspiring
25:43
towards. I think in this time, I said
25:45
this in my videos all the time, it's really important that we
25:48
are thinking critically and having these conversations and
25:50
engaging with media in this way. Because with media and
25:53
especially marketing, everything is intentional.
25:56
That's the whole point of marketing is to have as many
25:58
things intentionally placed, mentioned, highlighted to get
26:01
you to do a certain action, to have a certain belief or to make
26:05
a certain purchase. When it comes to the AE ad, many
26:08
people, many different teams and facets of the American Eagle
26:11
business have had to look through this and okay it.
26:14
So we really have to ask, why is this the time that companies and
26:17
brands feel emboldened or just able to put out advertisements
26:22
and messaging like this to either knowingly or unknowingly
26:25
include dog whistles and conservative rhetoric?
26:27
And honestly, with all this stuff that's been going on in
26:29
the world the past couple years, I think there are multiple
26:31
answers to that.