American Eagle’s “Great Genes”: Calculated Grift or Colossal Blunder?

Godwin’s Law, the old internet adage, posits that any online discussion, given enough time, will inevitably veer towards a comparison with Nazis or Hitler. This week, a denim ad got us there with breathtaking speed. A new campaign from American Eagle featuring actress Sydney Sweeney has ignited a cultural firestorm, with critics accusing the brand of peddling “Nazi fascist” propaganda and promoting the abhorrent ideology of eugenics. Defenders, in turn, have hailed the campaign as the final nail in the coffin of “woke advertising.” The firestorm has been a financial success, sending the company’s stock soaring. This raises a crucial question in our deeply polarized age: Was this a colossal, tone-deaf blunder born of systemic corporate blindness, or was it a cynical and calculated grift designed to profit from the very outrage it created?

Part I: A Brief, Horrifying History of “Great Genes”

To understand the visceral reaction to the ad’s central pun, one must first understand the dark history of the phrase it evokes. The term “eugenics”—from the Greek for “good birth” or “good genes”—was coined in the late 19th century by the English intellectual Sir Francis Galton. On its surface, the premise was seductive and scientific: that the human race could be improved through “better breeding,” encouraging the “fit” to reproduce and discouraging or preventing the “unfit.”

This was not a fringe idea; it became terrifyingly mainstream, nowhere more so than in the United States. In the early 20th century, eugenics was championed by American elites, Ivy League academics, corporate philanthropists, and presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson. It was taught in universities and celebrated at state fairs. This popular support had monstrous policy consequences. Dozens of states passed laws allowing for the forced sterilization of those deemed “feeble-minded” or otherwise undesirable—a practice upheld by the Supreme Court in its infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell decision. Eugenicist-fueled anxieties about racial purity were a primary driver of the racist Immigration Act of 1924, designed to staunch the flow of “inferior” stock from Southern and Eastern Europe.

It was in Nazi Germany that these American and British theories were followed to their most horrific and logical conclusion. American eugenicists often praised the initial Nazi sterilization laws of the 1930s, seeing them as a bold implementation of their own ideas. After the world witnessed the gas chambers of the Holocaust—the ultimate endpoint of a philosophy that seeks to categorize and eliminate “undesirable” genes—the word “eugenics” and the concept of “great genes” became radioactive. They were no longer scientific terms, but bywords for state-sponsored racism, mass murder, and a crime against humanity. This is the historical baggage that the American Eagle campaign, intentionally or not, chose to unpack.

Part II: The Anatomy of a Dog Whistle

With this history in mind, the elements of the modern campaign click into place with an unsettling clarity. The campaign relies on a potent trifecta of loaded symbols. First, there is the brand itself: “American Eagle,” a name that evokes a specific, nationalistic pride. Second, there is the chosen spokesperson, Sydney Sweeney, who the company’s own press release describes as having “‘girl next door’ charm”—a cultural trope historically coded as white, wholesome, and embodying a specific American ideal. Sweeney’s own history compounds this as a figure whom conservative commentators have repeatedly tried to enlist in the culture wars, particularly after photos from her mother’s birthday party featured guests in MAGA-style “Make Sixty Great Again” hats.

Third, and most damningly, is the explicit script. This is not just a subtle pun. In one video, Sweeney states, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color,” before the camera pans to her blue eyes and she concludes, “My jeans are blue.” This direct line from a discussion of inherited genetic traits to a celebration of her own, which fits a classic Aryan ideal, is what critics have identified as the campaign’s undeniable “dog whistle.”

Part III: The Case for a Colossal Blunder

The most charitable interpretation of this fiasco is that it was a case of profound corporate incompetence. This is the argument put forth by Dr. Amelie Burgess, a marketing expert from the University of Adelaide. She posits that it is unlikely a brand with a “diverse young audience” would intentionally lean into something so polarizing. The more plausible explanation, in this view, is that a non-diverse marketing team, completely blind to the historical context we have just outlined, genuinely believed they were making a “playful pun.” It is a powerful argument for the critical importance of diversity in corporate decision-making, suggesting that a lack of varied perspectives can create massive, and in this case, historically ignorant, blind spots.

Part IV: The Case for a Calculated Grift

The more cynical, and perhaps more plausible, interpretation is that this was not a blunder at all, but a deliberate and masterfully executed piece of “rage-bait” marketing. As Professor Marcus Collins of the University of Michigan noted, in today’s media landscape, “the scrutiny may be the point.” The hard financial data support this theory. As reported by NewsNation, American Eagle’s stock was down a staggering 45% year-over-year before the campaign. In the days after the controversy erupted, it surged by 21%, earning the label of a “meme stock.”

In this view, the company, desperate for a jolt, intentionally deployed a provocative dog whistle. They knew it would trigger a backlash from the left, which would in turn trigger a counter-backlash from the right, hailing Sweeney as a hero who “killed woke advertising.” The result is a massive, free media firestorm that puts their brand at the center of the national conversation and rewards them with a significant stock bump. The company’s own executive description of the campaign’s goal as creating “a little mischief” seems to be a wild understatement.

Part V: The Zeitgeist of Retreat

Whether a blunder or a grift, this campaign does not exist in a vacuum. As Professor Collins also noted, it arrives in the midst of a broader, quieter trend: the corporate “rollback” of the diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that were so loudly championed in the wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020. Many brands are backing away from what they now see as politically risky social stances. The American Eagle campaign can be seen as a particularly brazen and unapologetic symptom of this larger corporate retreat from social responsibility, a test to see how far a brand can push a controversial message in the current political climate.

Part VI: Conclusion: Intent Doesn’t Negate Impact

In the end, the question of the company’s motive—cynical grift or colossal blunder—is secondary to the result. As the Times of India so aptly put it, “intent doesn’t negate impact.” The campaign’s impact was to inject a phrase with deep ties to scientific racism and genocide back into the mainstream commercial discourse, all to sell denim. The final verdict on whether this was a successful strategy will not be written by the stock market, but by the public. As Professor Einav Rabinovitch-Fox observed, consumer pressure and boycotts have proven to be a powerful counter-force. The ultimate power still lies not with the brand, but with the people who choose whether or not to buy their “great jeans.”