Staff Writer For Magazine Deletes Social Media Account
Sydney Sweeney is not exactly a figure who invites strong political passions. She’s an actress who became known for her roles on HBO, a rising Hollywood star with the usual balance of fandom and indifference.
But then came the American Eagle jeans ad — a campaign most people barely noticed, until the perpetually online Left declared it a cultural crisis. SuddenlY, what was supposed to be a straightforward commercial turned into a weeklong parade of accusations, think-pieces, and overwrought claims that the ad promoted Nazism.
Lmaooooooo pic.twitter.com/2jhX2Qfd4j
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) August 15, 2025
The numbers, however, tell a different story. A staggering 88 percent of Americans did not share this apocalyptic reading. Only 12 percent — a fringe segment, really — felt the ad had anything to do with Nazism. That is not mainstream concern; that is a loud minority signaling their neuroses. And yet, because outrage is currency in modern media, publications sprinted to cover the “controversy” as if it revealed something profound about America.
Enter The New Yorker, where writer Doreen St. Félix published a piece branding Sweeney an “Aryan Princess.” The backlash came swiftly, but not for the reasons St. Félix intended. Old social media posts of hers resurfaced — posts openly hostile to white people, including comments like, “I hate white men,” and complaints about “white capitalism” destroying the earth.
As critics quickly pointed out, it was a jarring hypocrisy: condemning an actress for supposedly embodying white supremacy while, in the same breath, harboring explicitly racist statements.
New Yorker writer who referred to Sydney Sweeney as ‘Aryan princess’ deletes series of racist X posts: ‘I hate white men’ https://t.co/82EOW7vot8 pic.twitter.com/wm7oL0xpou
— New York Post (@nypost) August 15, 2025
The internet does not forgive or forget, and St. Félix found herself deleting her account entirely. Christopher Rufo, among others, called out the contradiction, labeling her “an outright anti-white racist.” Whether one agrees with Rufo or not, the episode laid bare how quickly accusations of bigotry can boomerang back on those who wield them.
Meanwhile, the original subject — Sweeney and her jeans ad — will be just fine. Audiences are not staging boycotts. The brand is not collapsing. The scandal, if it can even be called that, has already faded into the endless churn of internet outrage. In the end, the controversy says less about Sydney Sweeney than it does about the critics who projected their own anxieties onto a pair of jeans.
