It all started with an ad.
Sydney Sweeney—an actress known more for talent than politics—appeared in a new American Eagle campaign. It featured vintage Americana: a pretty blonde girl, denim jeans, and that signature wholesome-meets-edgy AE aesthetic. But for some on the progressive left, that wasn’t branding—it was a “dog whistle.”
To what, exactly? White supremacy, apparently.
Welcome to the era of ideological pareidolia: the habit of seeing bigotry where none exists.
Pareidolia, a psychological phenomenon, refers to the mind’s tendency to perceive a familiar pattern—often a face—where none exists. Think Jesus in toast or a face on Mars. Now apply that same instinct, not to clouds, but to culture. In today’s ideological climate, many progressives have developed a sort of moral pareidolia, scanning every image, word, or gesture for signs of white supremacy, fascism, or oppression.
It’s not vigilance. It’s paranoia in a virtue costume.
The Case Against Sydney Sweeney: Manufactured Meaning
The criticism leveled at Sweeney was as predictable as it was absurd: blonde, white, blue eyes, and conventionally attractive. Clearly the only explanation is a nod to some covert white nationalist narrative.
To borrow from Occam’s razor: maybe it’s just jeans. Or perhaps about nice tits and jeans?
There was no racist or eugenics messaging, just a hot woman selling clothing like we've seen for ages. No controversial slogan. No alt-right iconography. Just an actress in a mainstream American ad for a mainstream American clothing brand, and that's what makes it all "coded messaging".
Because American Eagle supposedly has a sudden incentive to market Nazi propaganda to their young, diverse target audience? For what reason?
Observed with reason and logic, there is none.
For some critics, however, it’s not about what’s there—it’s about what they want to see. Sweeney wasn’t signaling bigotry. The woke horde just suffers from a terminal case of endless "moral" suggestion.
Dog whistle? Not quite. But think about those videos on the internet where the dogs are speaking words! At first, it just sounds like the dog is barking nonsense, but conveniently, when the trainer says, "I love you mommy", the dog barking starts to sound like the words.
Now that's what the gullible mark interprets. Even if the dog never spoke those words, he clearly loves his mommy. Just like the AE jeans ads, someone is training them to see it as racist, and then it cascades into collective delusion.
How Manufactured Outrage Devalues Real Progress
When every denim ad becomes a Klan rally in disguise, you don’t sharpen society’s moral instincts—you dull them.
When you see every culturally neutral act as an act of violence, you not only cheapen real struggles—you exhaust the public's capacity to care.
It’s the boy who cried Nazi.
Real activism requires discernment. But in this hyper-reactive landscape, discernment is heresy. The algorithm rewards anger, and so activism becomes about volume, not sanity.
There’s a moment when movements become caricatures of themselves—when the noble pursuit of justice curdles into relentless, joyless gatekeeping. When fashion ads are treated like manifestos, you know the movement has jumped the shark.
This performative outrage traps society in a perpetual moral panic. It’s not about creating a better world—it’s about policing perception. There is no end goal. Just an endless treadmill of suspicion where even denim becomes dangerous.
Progress should be measured by material improvements—freedom, equality, prosperity—not by how many notches you can carve in the cancel culture bedpost.
The Ironic Reinforcement of Hierarchies
Here's the kicker. By reducing identity to guilt and culture to coded supremacy, progressives unintentionally preserve the very hierarchies they claim to fight.
When you declare that certain races, appearances, or cultural expressions are inherently problematic—based not on intent or impact, but on who they are or what they look like—you are re-establishing a caste system with different semantics.
In other words: the ideology that claims to be anti-racist often ends up reifying race as the only thing that matters.
Justice isn't about perpetual guilt. It's about progress, and there’s quite a difference between progress and performance.
The civil rights movement achieved actual change: voting rights, desegregation, legal equality. Today, too much of what passes for activism is self-congratulatory digital theater. Instead of dismantling unjust systems, they attack shadows. Instead of persuading, they posture.
When ideology becomes religion, and symbols become sacraments, moral clarity dissolves into fanaticism. Every celebrity becomes a Rorschach test, every social moment a potential sin.
Real progress is measured in concrete outcomes. But the progressive tirade has become perpetual—because outrage has no endpoint. The result? A parody of justice where every step forward is undermined by a manufactured crisis.
Conclusion: No Agenda, just Denim and Outrage Addiction.
The American Eagle ad with Sydney Sweeney wasn’t a secret rallying cry for white nationalism. It was a jeans ad. And yet, because we’re trapped in a cycle of bad-faith interpretation and performative outrage, a completely harmless piece of marketing became the new moral battlefield for outrage culture trolls with an unquenchable thirst to vilify.
If we want to make real progress, we have to stop hallucinating hatred where there is none. Not every image is a symbol. Not every blonde actress is a threat. And not every ad is a manifesto.
Sometimes, it really is just jeans.
