everything i know about sydney sweeney has been learned against my will

I generally try to refrain from expending mental energy on anything Sydney Sweeney-related—I have never read or heard anything about her that didn’t give me the ick—but the week her American Eagle campaign launched, at least three people asked me for “my thoughts.” And holy moly, in no way did I expect it to be as bad as it was—past dog whistles and into full-on fascist foghorn territory. But what really amazed me was how uncritically it was being praised, how incredibly hell-bent (mostly white) people were on denying that it was anything serious.

And so I made this: Popaganda: Cultural Encoding in Media & the World Shaped by “Culture Wars.”

I didn’t want to write another criticism of the ad (many excellent ones already exist)—I was more interested in how easily narratives spin out of control, how “culture wars” over competing denim ads is missing the forest for the trees. I’m never not thinking of this quote in particular from Toni Morrison:

The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.

To be honest, I got discouraged many times writing this, because I know my readers, and I know you’re not stupid. A lot of the time, writing stuff like this feels like preaching to the choir—it’s not reaching the people who really should read it. But my friend said something that has stayed with me since. “I think of these decks like art pieces,” he told me. “It’s a snapshot of the world at a certain point in time.” And so that’s how I’ve chosen to think of them as well. The TikTok deck that started it all was outdated pretty much as soon as I published it, but it’s still noteworthy, mostly because I wrote it at a time that everyone still thought TikTok was a silly, fleeting fad. Now it’s inextricable from the fabric of “internet culture”—even if you personally aren’t on TikTok, you live in the world it has created.

And this is why it both is and isn’t that deep—in the grand scheme of things, a denim commercial is not the point. But when people are being kidnapped and murdered because they don’t “look American” enough, when the United States government is tweeting out literal Nazi propaganda, it’s time to evaluate how we got here. It doesn’t start with swastikas and gas chambers—it’s a gradual shifting of the Overton window, a test of our tolerance. “The road to authoritarianism is littered with people telling you you’re overreacting.”

The final version goes live on LinkedIn tomorrow, so give it a like or comment a “👖” to let me know you’ve seen it. Enjoy!

Read it here.

💖 jenny

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