Once again, the perpetually offended brigade has found their latest target—this time, it’s a clothing advertisement featuring an attractive blonde actress. The familiar script played out across social media: accusations of hidden messaging, claims of moral outrage, and demands for corporate apology. But as with most woke crusades, there’s a massive disconnect between the online mob and everyday Americans. I’ve seen this movie before, haven’t you?
The controversy swirling around a major retailer’s jeans campaign reveals something far more significant than fashion choices. It shows how a tiny group of activists use social media to fake outrage. They want you to think everyone’s mad when almost nobody is. What they didn’t count on was someone actually polling real Americans about their manufactured crisis.
The target this time was American Eagle’s ad campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney with the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” Critics on social media erupted, claiming the wordplay between “jeans” and “genes” combined with Sweeney’s blonde hair and blue eyes, constituted a Nazi-esque dogwhistle about genetic superiority. (Yeah, really—they found fascism in a denim advertisement.) But here’s what the outrage merchants don’t want you to know: according to The Economist/YouGov poll, only 12% of Americans found the ad offensive. Meanwhile, 39% thought it was clever and 40% had no strong opinion either way. Think about that for a second.
The Numbers Tell a Different Story
The polling data demolishes the narrative of widespread offense. Among the tiny minority who claimed to be offended, the breakdown is revealing. Democrats were more than twice as likely as Republicans to find the ads “offensive”—18% compared to just 7%. But even among Democrats, more people found the ad clever (22%) than offensive. Let me get this straight—even in their own party, the offended are outnumbered. Meanwhile, 57% of Republicans and 38% of independents called the campaign clever.
From ‘The Daily Wire’:
The gender gap was also pronounced, with 17% of women saying that the ads were “offensive” compared to only 7% of men who said the same. On the opposite side, nearly one third of the women polled (31%) said the ads were “clever” compared to nearly half of the men (49%).
Among Americans 65 and older, only 13% found it offensive while 34% called it clever. Even young people weren’t falling for it—just 12% of 18-29 year-olds claimed offense. The survey asked 1,635 adults from August 9-11, giving us a real picture of what Americans actually think.
What makes this manufactured controversy even more absurd is its origin story. Are these people serious? According to reports, the initial criticism came from a handful of social media accounts with minimal followers. The “outrage” didn’t gain any real traction until conservative commentators began highlighting it as another example of progressive overreaction. In other words, the woke mob’s influence is so weak that their controversies only become newsworthy when others point out how ridiculous they are.
Democrats out of Touch Again
American Eagle’s response was refreshingly straightforward: “‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story.” No apology. No begging. Just the truth. That’s it—a simple statement of the obvious that any reasonable person already understood.
Here’s what I want to know: When will corporations stop cowering before this tiny minority? This latest failed cancellation attempt should serve as a reminder that the woke mob’s power exists primarily in corporate boardrooms’ imagination and newsroom echo chambers. Real Americans—the 88% who weren’t offended by a jeans ad—have better things to worry about. They’re not searching for hidden political messages in retail marketing.
Key Takeaways
• Only 12% of Americans found Sydney Sweeney’s jeans ad offensive, proving the woke mob is a tiny minority
• Democrats were twice as likely to be offended, yet still only 18% took issue with it
• The “outrage” started with low-follower accounts and only gained attention when conservatives mocked it
• JD Vance called out Democrats for learning nothing from their 2024 election loss
Sources: Daily Wire, New York Post
