We can mark a time of death for the left's hold on American culture, and it happened when a beautiful woman zipped up some jeans.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but for most people, Sydney Sweeney is a fun person to look at. She's conventionally attractive, with physical beauty traits that most men can't help but be drawn to. This natural beauty and sex appeal were the basis behind the famous (or infamous if you're part of the perpetually unhappy) "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans" commercial from American Eagle.
Read: Why We're So Attracted to Sydney Sweeney
Obviously, the joke was that Sweeney had great genes, lending her to her attractiveness, and it's that particular line that had leftists enraged to a point where they were willing to make the commercial a front in the culture war. It was a battle that America seemed willing to engage in because the left was fighting an uphill battle.
Notice I said "America" and not "conservatives." I think it's important to understand that while the left picked the fight, it wasn't a political battle. This was about a cultural turn away from politics.
And the proof is in the numbers. As my colleague Sister Toldjah reported on Wednesday, the American Eagle commercial got a fantastic response in the market for Sweeney's appearance:
American Eagle stock soared nearly 40% Thursday after the clothing chain credited a risqué Sydney Sweeney ad campaign with supercharging sales — even as the spots sparked outrage online and in Washington.
Executives told Wall Street analysts that the campaign featuring the “Euphoria” star — billed as “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” — drove record traffic and unprecedented new customer sign-ups.
Read: Winning: New Data Confirms American Eagle Got Last Laugh in the Sydney Sweeney Ad Debate
The left's opening salvo was obviously to call the ad racist and label it Nazi propaganda, as if by putting an attractive white woman in an ad, making a play on her genes, was equal to promoting white people above everyone else and declaring that the Jews needed to be exiled or thrown in camps.
That's not what American Eagle was suggesting at all. She was referring to her attractiveness, and the latter part is more of a Palestinian/Hamas thing.
But it's not like you needed a crystal ball and tarot cards to see how the left was going to react to the ad. If I had to guess, American Eagle brass knew what the reaction would be. They knew the ad would cause a dust-up on the left, and they knew that it would ultimately give the ad more public awareness and, most importantly, win them the hearts and minds of Americans.
American Eagle was taking advantage of a cultural moment and played it masterfully, but the play required some dominoes to be in the right place to fall correctly, and the first domino was that people were sick of leftist "rules" for society and business.
Pretend you're American Eagle's CEO. You're watching the news, you're seeing the market react to things, and moreover, you're paying attention to how people are voting during the 2024 election. Disney's woke movies are rejected out of hand by audiences, sending their bean counters into panic attacks. Ads that virtue signal leftist beliefs raise public awareness for the brand that releases them, but it doesn't result in good sales. They watched Bud Light and Target take massive hits for participating in the LGBTQ+ movement. They're seeing other corporations publicly back out of DEI and woke initiatives. Television shows that lean heavily into leftist ideation aren't being watched.
Then they watched Donald Trump get elected after the left tried to kill him. They watched Democrats walk away from the party to help elect Trump, who then turned around and began doing things the left became apoplectic about, to great applause from the people.
If you're a businessman or woman with any sense in you, you'll see this all for what it is. Not a political turn, but a cultural one. You'll see that people are done with the stale, eggshell walking that leftism required of the public, and see that what's going on is a return to something more real and fun.
And one of those things is a return to appreciating beauty. Not "beauty," in the bastardized way the left defines it, but beauty—conventional attractiveness.
It's cool to be pretty again.
And it's cool because people have lost any fear of reprisal from the left. They're not afraid to speak out at the office for fear of getting in trouble with some leftist wokescold. They aren't scared of activist groups banging down their door and threatening them with bad press. They can safely shrug off demands from investors like BlackRock that they "force behaviors" because it's clear at this point that the social engineering they want is bad for business.
Leftism is out of vogue. People are sick of it.
Read: Nike's Latest Ad Is Probably an Even Better Sign We're Back Than Sydney Sweeney's Jeans
So AE put a hot white woman in their clothes, had her speak softly about her genes while she put them on, and let the left get outraged, spurring a reaction from the American public sick of said outrage.
That moment proved to everyone that leftism had lost its control. Corporations were free to advertise in ways that would actually get them customers. They didn't need to "do something" to help society. They could just sell products. They left was going to rage, but that's all they do.
So who cares about them?
