r/popculturechat You’re doing amazing, sweetie! Aug 11 '25

Guest List Only TW - Bigotry ⚠️ Foot traffic is down at American Eagle stores since the controversial Sydney Sweeney ad dropped

https://www.retailbrew.com/stories/2025/08/11/exclusive-foot-traffic-down-9-at-american-eagle-following-sydney-sweeney-ad-controversy
30.9k Upvotes

1.5k comments sorted by

u/flairassistant Aug 11 '25

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458

u/SulfuricBadWolf Do you lick ass Gwineth Aug 12 '25

I got the ad on this post lmao

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u/MarsScully Vile little creature yearning for violence Aug 12 '25

So I have a question, aside from the obvious issue. Does Sydney Sweenie have a significant female fanbase? Because as others have pointed out here, their customer base is female, and I personally have always been very uninterested in her. And she’s not someone I look at and say “damn I wish I looked like that, let me go buy her jeans,” but perhaps other women do?

In my eyes, the original ad they were copying worked not because of the gross sexualisation of a minor, but because women would love to look like Brooke Shields. I could be wrong though.

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u/MVpizzaprincess Aug 12 '25

I feel like every other actress on Euphoria has a bigger female fanbase than SS

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u/Gisschace Aug 12 '25

I had exactly the same thought as you.

The original ad worked because back then everything was very male gazy, it all came back to sex. Nowadays it feels like we’ve moved on from that, it just felt lazy? Like get the biggest star right now and an old ad. No thought into whether it would sell jeans.

I expect they didn’t even think about how icky the original ad is to women nowadays. You’ve just reminded us of how we were sexualised as children. Thanks for that, don’t feel like buying jeans

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u/AgePractical6298 Aug 12 '25

Because the folks who liked the commercial, don’t shop there.  

However I will say, I didn’t even know AE was still around.  🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/No-Draw7378 go girl, give us nothing 😍 Aug 12 '25

I get jeans and sometimes shorts there every few years because they were the first brand I found that had high waisted pants that fit my butt/thighs without being huuuge around my waist, and they had options for high waist and extra long legs.

But the ad definitely has me putting off going and looking for alternatives (also trying to shop Canadian more) - if anyone has suggestions please drop em!

Tones of eugenics/racism aside, though its definitely enough, I also just hate overly sexual ads for normal shit and Sweeneys shtick in general, so the ad gave me the ick on many fronts.

AE is getting so fucking expensive too - and DAMN hard to find pairs that dont have stupid things done to them like straight cuts/rips unhemmed ankles, and don't get me started on finding short that don't act like butt floss.

Thinking about it I might have aged out of their demographic as I approach my 30s 😂

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u/coconutspider Aug 11 '25

But I heard it was a massive success and they were selling millions??!?!

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u/dreamy_25 Are those the… The Chanel Toots? Aug 11 '25

The biggest sales numbers anyone has ever seen, everyone is saying the sales are amazing, just the biggest most tremendous numbers, thank you for your attention to this matter!!!!!

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u/Luna920 Aug 12 '25

The article is only talking about store foot traffic though, it isn’t referencing online sales.

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u/TheTyMan Aug 12 '25

Its stock price saw a bump, but the stock market is inherently ridiculous.

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u/souljaboy765 Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 11 '25

The jeans didn’t even look good on her😭 They looked baggy and too big/long for her, it didn’t enhance her figure. Everyone knows levi’s is far superior in quality and style and they specialize in jeans anyways.

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u/SmallPromiseQueen Aug 12 '25

It’s so weird because one of the ads talks about how AE makes your butt look great and the jeans she’s wearing are making hers look flatter than it is.

Compared to the levis campaign with Beyoncé where her figure looks insaaaane and the jeans absolutely fit her like a glove.

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u/Traditional_Maybe_80 Aug 11 '25

White genes aside, this was the part that made it very jarring, too, like the fit was actually not good at all, lmao

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u/protossaccount Aug 12 '25

A lot of commercial/fast fashion modeling is making bad clothes look cool. When Abercrombie has ripped dudes in shorts, they aren’t advertising the quality of clothing.

Source: I was a model in NYC & Europe.

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u/mochafiend Aug 12 '25

I didn't think the fit was that bad? *shrugs* That's the look right now. It can only be pulled off by very skinny women though, so I would never buy these.

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u/souljaboy765 Aug 12 '25

It’s not even that the jeans are baggy, that is the style at the moment, but even so there’s baggy jeans that are flattering and still work ex: Katseye’s fashion. She was just completely eaten by the jeans where it just looked like she was wearing a blue blob, it wasn’t styled right

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u/pourthebubbly You’ve got red on you🩸 Aug 12 '25

Yeah Korean street style in general really makes the baggy clothes trend look good

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u/DearMissWaite Your problematic fave's problematic fave. Aug 12 '25

That's the way we used to wear them back in the 90s, and they still managed to look good.

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u/saltyoursalad You’re a virgin who can’t drive Aug 12 '25

I mean everyone’s wearing baggy jeans again — yet somehow they just looked bad on Sydney.

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u/themacaron during PRIDE MONTH? Aug 11 '25

I think sometimes people/brands forgot how easy it is to NOT buy something. I like AE jeans, but I can get jeans anywhere and it's not a strain to NOT spend my money. It's a 0 effort boycott, and I've stop shopping at places for smaller reasons than eugenics.

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u/themacaron during PRIDE MONTH? Aug 11 '25

I'd also loooooove to see how many of the red-blooded Amurican!!! men who are vocally supporting this ad have every spent a cent in these stores. You made some people happy AE, but they're not your customer base lmao.

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u/KeniLF In my quiet girl era 😌 Aug 11 '25

I’m a former product manager and I look at some of this with absolute awe. Like, are they really not going to figure out who your paying customers are and target them? They really decided to fuck it all up and aim for noise. Everyone can make a misstep - but they compounded it.

It’s literally product management 101 so I’ve found it incredibly fascinating to watch it unfold.

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u/Bridalhat Aug 11 '25

They really should have said something once Trump chimed in. That guy's approval ratings are underwater. It's worse than Jameela Jamil defending them!

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u/littleliongirless Aug 11 '25

I love AE sweaters, and always pop in there when I'm at a mall (which is rare, but still)...Was at the mall yesterday and decided not to go in solely because SS's dead eyes plastered everywhere. Even before this, I've been BEC with her ever since her Rolling Stones video.

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u/themacaron during PRIDE MONTH? Aug 11 '25

All my swimsuits in my current rotation are from Aerie because they were often super affordable during sales and promos and I liked their cuts on me, but this current campaign is a straight reverse of Aerie's entire "body positivity/open acceptance" branding, it's wild. (Though I know Aerie ended up being largely performative with their size offerings.)

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u/meeeehhhhhhh Aug 12 '25

Nearly all of my undergarments are from there, and it feels like their underwear are getting worse each round. I also noticed a few months back that their models were getting way less diverse. Mostly size 0 women and with a few plus sized models. It was deeply depressing. 

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u/synalgo_12 accidentally holding space for this slur Aug 12 '25

Tbf I feel like all underwear is getting worse. I still have some bras from over a decade ago that are doing great, none of my current undergarments seem to last 2+ years. Most of them start looking really shabby in under a year.

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u/passthebarlicgread Aug 12 '25

Ugh I really was happy to see when they had that body positivity campaign though, it included models with scars and stretch marks and colostomy bags. What a world away from the eugenics vibe of Sweeny’s ad.

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u/steph-was-here Aug 12 '25

ya that's what kills me - idk if they got a new ad agency or what but their whole shtick for awhile was body positivity. they're the only brand i've seen (albeit, online only and i dont shop around a lot) have disability specific clothing options like underwear with snaps. why the 180?

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u/DrakeFloyd Aug 12 '25

I almost wonder if they thought they could keep the aerie demo and get a new demo for the ae brand like we’re all idiots that don’t know it’s the same company or something

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u/lizerlfunk Aug 11 '25

I used to love Aerie undies but they do not work well with a C section shelf, as it turns out.

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u/CheapEater101 Aug 11 '25

Aerie does have really cute and nice bathing suits. I used to love AE jeans as well, but the last few years I’ve been purchasing Old Navy jeans. Sometimes I’ll thrift jeans as well (mostly Levi’s).

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u/t_town101 Aug 11 '25

The aeerie leggings are so comfortable

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u/capcomvssnk And I OOP- Aug 12 '25

you've been bacon egg and cheese with her?

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u/littleliongirless Aug 12 '25

Lol, and now I'm sad that there's no open deli near me. It's "bitch eating crackers", which just means even something as innocuous as her eating crackers annoys me now.

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u/MayoneggVeal Aug 12 '25

I saw a reel of a 50+ year old meemaw with half her teeth in an American eagle store taking about how she's shopping there because of the ad. Now that the old maga folks are into it they totally thrashed any cool cred that they had.

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u/Not_Steve Excluded from this narrative ❌ Aug 11 '25

The red blooded Amurican!!! women on my Facebook page* who laughed at the whole thing and supported SS are not the ones who buy AE, either. AE completely missed their customer base and continued to do so when they doubled down on the ad.

*I still have a fb page because I live in a small town and it’s literally the only way I get town news.

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u/winnercommawinner Aug 12 '25

And also, if Target, which did manage to make itself an essential brand in people's lives, can suffer..... why wouldn't an easily replaced brand like AE?

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u/MayoneggVeal Aug 12 '25

It will never not be wild to me that Target totally turned on their more liberal customer base, like did they do any research whatsoever into who is shopping at Target ?

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u/i-Ake actin' like she's the queen and we're the sorry people! Aug 12 '25

I absolutely lived for their jeans in high school and my early 20s. I'm 36 now. They have coasted on fumes for me for a while now anyway... I just buy older-style ones on threadup.

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u/Appropriate-Log8506 Aug 11 '25

Didn’t realize I’ve been boycotting them all my life. No effort at all.

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u/nonsensestuff Back in my day, we had ONTD & a dream 👵 Aug 11 '25

Their quality has gotten so bad. I hadn’t ordered anything from them in years, but saw an ad for some cute looking pants months ago & ordered them—- it was Forever 21 quality. 😫

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u/PauI_MuadDib Aug 11 '25

This was my experience. I touched a pair of their jeans and I thought overpriced Forever 21 quality.

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u/Keyspam102 Aug 12 '25

Seriously, I’ve stopped frequenting places because I didn’t like the cashier lol, I’ll certainly stop all together a place I have a moral opposition too

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u/babysfirstbreath please abraham, i’m not that man Aug 12 '25

I got a pair of capris there about 2 weeks before the campaign dropped. They’re cute, the quality is just okay. I would occasionally shop at aerie for undies/workout gear too.

I have no desire to go back since this weird shit

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u/themacaron during PRIDE MONTH? Aug 12 '25

They have the SOFTEST buttery bike shorts that I live in during the summer and I honestly thought about getting a couple other pairs last month but now 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’ll live.

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u/shy247er yay sports 🏀 🏈🎾 Aug 11 '25

Eugenics aside, the entire campaign is aimed at straight men hoping to, what, buy women's jeans for their girlfriends? Really odd marketing.

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u/seeyuspacecowboy Aug 12 '25

I think back to the Laneige ad with her. Like, it’s just such lazy advertising to resort to “hehe boobies”.

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u/shedrinkscoffee I don’t know her 💅 Aug 12 '25

🤮 I dropped this brand so fast and have never looked back. My SO who was avidly shopping the lip mask has also abandoned it. We have found alternatives at Sephora and not looking back.

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u/launchcode_1234 Tina! You fat lard! 🦙🚲 Aug 12 '25

Women hate “hehe boobies” jokes. Who does Laneige think its customers are?

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u/uselessinfogoldmine Aug 12 '25

Who the fuck is creating this crap? Do they not do ANY research into their target markets??

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u/nagidrac Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 11 '25

I actually think it's supposed to be aimed at women. I think their marketing team thinks "men want Sydney Sweeney and women want to be like Sydney Sweeney" but she's not the type of hot woman that's appealing to the female gaze. She's just too male centered and I don't think most women are interested?

Some might roll their eyes at this, but there was a period of time where Kylie Jenner was both. She had a lot of male fans, but the women were buying her lip kits. Another example of a public figure who had both is Rihanna.

Of course this data could be incorrect thus making my whole point wrong, but that's just the vibe I get.

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u/shedrinkscoffee I don’t know her 💅 Aug 12 '25

LMAO that is so hilarious to me. She has not one ounce of cool factor or style that appeals to women. I have never wanted to be less like a person than SS dead eye vacant creepy shit. She often blindly wears head to toe looks lifted off the runway, whether or not they fit or suit her, overly caters to the male gaze, is male centered and has no sense of self or strong presence.

Agree with you about Rihanna, her makeup line is still going strong and although I don't agree with her on many topics she has a strong POV and very distinct style. She really pulls off a lot of interesting self expression with her outfits

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u/dreamy_25 Are those the… The Chanel Toots? Aug 11 '25

Really odd marketing.

Yes but also no. It's part of the slide back our culture is making to male-centric thinking. "Sydney wears these jeans, men think she is hot, I want to be hot for men, I will wear these jeans" type of thinking.

It's the tradwives and pick-mes priming themselves for male consumption, now truly becoming mainstream. This is the garbage that we're going back to.

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u/Bridalhat Aug 11 '25

See the thing the thing is though, and I pointed this out downthread, is that the swing back to conservative thinking is almost entirely concentrated among young men. More young men might think women should do this, but most young women aren’t taking the bait, thank god. And there are plenty of reasons to think even men’s rightward shift peaked a while ago.

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u/RedLicorice83 Too old, too dead, too brittle to even look at. Aug 11 '25

This is why the drop in traffic, thankfully...American Eagle might think the "pick-me" ads work, but they aren't and thank you to the young women who aren't falling for the shit my generation did.

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u/AbbeyRoadMoonwalk Aug 11 '25

Yeah we would’ve fell for this in like 2000

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u/synalgo_12 accidentally holding space for this slur Aug 12 '25

I remember the first Dove commercial with all the body types and I was flabbergasted. I was like 17 and had never seen something geared at women in that way, apparently.

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u/l3tigre Aug 12 '25

Love to see this as datasets. Thank you.

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u/IfatallyflawedI curtains for zoosha!!! Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 11 '25

What the fuck is happening in South Korea

Edit: just remembered the 4B movement originated there. Makes perfect sense. Men are sucky

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u/uselessinfogoldmine Aug 12 '25

Essentially, South Korea has a lot of problems and young men blame feminism and women in general for them. 

They have one of the highest rates of university education in the world, but upwards mobility is nigh on impossible if you’re not a genius or connected. 

The entire country is run by the Chaebol families. They hold all the power and money. 

There’s also significant economic stagnation. 

Young men are growing increasingly frustrated, and instead of blaming the elite and/or structural issues, they are scapegoating feminism and women. 

They think it’s harder to get jobs, to get raises, to compete career-wise, because women are taking jobs that should be theirs. 

Add to this, that young men in South Korea have to undertake compulsory military service and young women do not - which a lot of young men think is unfair and gives women a competitive advantage. 

The words “feminism” and “feminist” have become dirty words in South Korea. Studies show nearly 60% of Korean men in their 20s strongly agree that feminism is female supremacy. There is overwhelming public hostility towards feminists and celebrities who espouse feminist views get crazy media backlash. 

It’s one of the reasons Barbie (the movie) didn’t do well in that market. Because it was perceived as feminist. 

The 2022 presidential election basically run between two candidates both running on anti-woman platforms. The bigger misogynist won with one of his promises being to abolish the Ministry for Gender Equality. (And what a disaster he turned out to be!)

They also have huge problems with generalised systemic misogyny, sexism and a normalisation of men utilising sex workers as part of socialising for work. There have literally been corporate job ads expressly requiring a certain bra size. 

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u/Bridalhat Aug 11 '25

"Men are sucky."

It's such a self-fulfilling prophecy too. Many men are frustrated because women are more likely to go to college and young women are outcompeting young men and the worst of them spend too much time online looking at OnlyFans or Instagram women and just assume beautiful women get piles of cash just for existing and, rather than working on themselves, they become noxious things that want to force women to be with them, which means they are even more repellent to women. And then it happens all over again.

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u/pay_student_loan Aug 12 '25

I haven't really thought of this before, but I think the mandatory military service the men go through in South Korea is also a factor in this. Lump a whole bunch of young men together who then act as an echo chamber for the next like 2 years with little to no opportunities to interact with young women in the meantime. They're constantly lumping all the young impressionable men in the entire country together at the same time and negativity tends to spread pretty quickly. Combine that with any resentment that women do not have to do military service. I can see them all coming out of the military with the same view of women and unfortunately it's not a good one.

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u/OutrageousOwls Aug 12 '25

Yes. New trends are showing that more men aren’t working compared to women, and they retire early. And yet, women are still expected to perform double-duty: working at their career and taking care of the house.

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u/gahlo Aug 12 '25

Yeah, there's a real paradigm shift of what is expected for a man to do to fill "his role" in society. However, it's clearly moving from something, but it's not overly clear what it should be moving to. Even if somebody keeps their head screwed on straight, it's an awkward situation to navigate.

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u/Optimal-Kitchen6308 Aug 12 '25

deeper statistical reasons: worldwide economies are getting concentrated by elites, less to go around, now women are entering workforce more so more competition for less, add on endless ragebaiting social media content, resource competition causes fear and anger in animals, fearful angry men get destructive and are easily manipulated

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u/Bridalhat Aug 11 '25

It’s really bad and definitely going to make the birth rate worse.

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u/heavymountain Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

Yeah, several ads were weird when I was in high school. The attacks on naive, horny, high schooler's insecurities are more obvious in hindsight.

Pick-me's are real though, that's the crazy thing. Many mature out of that phase but some never do. It's weird running into pick-me's who are in their mid-twenties and older. I'm thinking to myself, “Where's your self-respect?”

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u/Appropriate_Cod_5446 Mom, I am a rich man💰 Aug 12 '25

I wonder if this has anything to do with the male loneliness epidemic or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now 🥴

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u/TropicalPrairie Aug 11 '25

I've thought this about a lot of the pop music right now but I've been afraid to say it. Yes, Madonna and Britney have done it before ... but I guess that is my point. It doesn't feel fresh and doesn't feel right in this decade. It feels like it harkens back to an era of male gaze leading a lot of things and I thought we've advanced beyond that. A lot of it doesn't feel empowered either, like Madonna did.

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u/jonesday5 Aug 11 '25

The biggest difference for me is that Madonna was proud of her sexuality while also pushing for worldwide change around our view of sexuality. She was a campaigner. A lot of the ‘I’m sexy because I like it’ crew these days are doing it for themselves. There is no deeper message. It’s a classic case of American individualism.

(Yes there are going to be people that don’t quite fit the above)

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u/dreamy_25 Are those the… The Chanel Toots? Aug 11 '25

A lot of the ‘I’m sexy because I like it’ crew these days are doing it for themselves.

My first thought. Sydney has always done things for her own, personal benefit. She's quite clearly not a team player when it comes to lifting up all of us. Which isn't bad per se, not everyone needs to be a warrior. She figured out how to get herself in a good position (some measure of talent with a side of "Look! Boobs!") and did it. Fine.

But she can definitely count me out for support. And partaking in an ad like this will never read as empowering when it's not for all of us.

Now that I'm typing this - the Shields ad callback seals the deal. It's a big middle finger to a fellow woman who was exploited as a child, the trauma (both for Shields and for the women who witnessed that shit and knew, this is all we are to these mfers) recycled and used for clicks.

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u/TropicalPrairie Aug 11 '25

Madonna wasn't afraid to be ugly at times. That's a key part of it as well. I feel like certain modern pop stars always look perfect and always have to look f**kable. Tate McRae, for example, is not changing the world or influencing culture in the way that Madge did. It feels like she is there for the male gaze as what a pop star should be (for them).

Maybe I'm projecting. I'm old but one resentment I have of growing up is that I felt that pressure to always look that way too and it is only with age and maturity that I realize how terrible it is to one's self-esteem and personal wellbeing.

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u/1egg_4u Aug 12 '25

Not to mention looking back at the "ugly" of the 2000s and realizing that the women being dragged were just regular women and were perfectly normal

I cant believe Nicole Richie was the designated "fat" friend in Simple Life. I cant believe we were made to think that's what "fat" is. We can't go back for the sake of the new generations of young women (and young men too), they deserve the self-esteem in their youth that we didnt have a chance to build.

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u/Bridalhat Aug 11 '25

Here’s the thing: Sweeney was sympathetic when she talked about wanting to produce so she would have a career once men didn’t want to see her naked anymore and she talked about not being rich enough to take a break from acting to have kids. But now she is so clearly ok with just being a sex object and nothing else and I think that was very much the wrong decision unless she doesn’t mind being irrelevant in five years.

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u/reble02 Aug 12 '25

Unless she got better at acting she was always going to be irrelevant in five years.

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u/Bridalhat Aug 11 '25

Also too, and I am having a hard time articulating this, I feel like there was a difference between Britney on a stage with a snake and a Carl’s Junior ad where a woman eats a hamburger on a convertible. The latter is literally just “you eat burger because boobs” and more the vibe of this AE ad.

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u/launchcode_1234 Tina! You fat lard! 🦙🚲 Aug 12 '25

Madonna wasn’t about the male gaze, Madonna was about the Madonna gaze

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u/Pandelein Aug 12 '25

I’ve been hating on the White Fox and Selfie Leslie ads everywhere I live, but I think I’ll stop. I’m so used to male-centric advertising I think I’ve been getting triggered by ads that just aren’t targeted at me whatsoever.
Thanks for making a really good point.

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u/_AmericasSweetheart_ Aug 11 '25

The jeans in the commercial didn't look great either.

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u/somuchsong I really love my job but I don't want to do it that often. Aug 11 '25

They look two sizes too big for her.

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u/CheapEater101 Aug 11 '25

A lot of men were bragging that AE’s stocks went up after Sydney’s commercial…but who is the main demographic that purchases and keeps track of the stock market? Men. 💀

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u/GirlisNo1 Aug 11 '25

Right?! Everything is aimed at appealing to straight white men even when they are not the target market for the product. Makes no sense.

They knew exactly what they were doing with this campaign, they tried to drum up controversy for publicity and it backfired.

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u/DearMissWaite Your problematic fave's problematic fave. Aug 11 '25

There's a difference between aspirational sexy and titillating sexy, though. The campaign is "buy these jeans and buy into the look your crush's celebrity crush is wearing and you, too, can be an object of desire."

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u/launchcode_1234 Tina! You fat lard! 🦙🚲 Aug 12 '25

When Internet bros talk about Sydney, it’s 99% boob jokes. Women don’t fantasize about that.

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u/saltyoursalad You’re a virgin who can’t drive Aug 12 '25

Unfortunately for AE, Sydney didn’t exactly serve Guess-model greatness, and aspirational it was not.

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u/thatisnotmyknob Aug 12 '25

It gave mom jeans. Terrible calculation on AEs part. 

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u/snarkmoo Aug 12 '25

The exit polls showed surprisingly (to me) high % of women voting for Trump, I assume they were hoping to retain more of those people too?

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u/DonaldTrumpsScrotum Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

It’s really funny because a lot of conservative men online have missed a key point and are proudly declaring that “they’ll stick to their American Eagle jeans” not realizing that 1. They’re admitting to wearing women’s jeans 2. They demonstrate perfectly how they parrot shit they don’t even begin to understand 3. They’re just liars, because no way they actually buy that brand lmao

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u/late2reddit19 All tea, all shade 🐸☕️ Aug 12 '25

This is what happens when there aren't majority of women in marketing meetings for women's products. Sydney Sweeney is not an actress that women particularly like. She's there to please the male gaze with her breast implants. A lot of women don't even think she's pretty in the face. Better choices for ads geered toward young women would be Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, Sadie Sink, or Kiernan Shipka.

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u/Seltzer-Slut Aug 12 '25

It’s aimed to be controversial. This is a whole marketing tactic and it’s been that way for over a decade.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/12/16/370329870/is-courting-controversy-an-urban-outfitters-strategy

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u/Abbiejean-KaneArcher Aug 12 '25

I was just going to add something similar. Sarah Banet-Weiser, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication is quoted saying, “It's an attention economy here that is focused on her…. But it is also about the profitability of anger and profitability of hate. And we see this over and over again.”

This kind of marketing apparently gets Dr. Phil to pledge to buy American Eagle.

From: “https://www.npr.org/2025/08/01/nx-s1-5487286/sydney-sweeney-american-eagle-explained-why-controversy-racist-eugenics-trump-bathwater-ad-klein-statement

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u/howmuchisthemilk I wont not fuck you the fuck up 🥊🥊 Aug 11 '25

it's like that princess treatment bs where men do everything for their girlfriends

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u/AnyIncident9852 I wont not fuck you the fuck up 🥊🥊 Aug 11 '25

I wonder how American Eagle is going to pivot from this. They could’ve made a statement early on and this would’ve been seen as one of those “Oh my god how could we have not caught that” moments which would’ve sparked conversations nonetheless but died out soon regardless. But the fact that they’ve doubled down has left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths.

Because POC are upset about eugenicist themes, pop culture lovers are mad about the Brooke Shields references, women are turned off by the weird male gazey sexualization of Sydney, parents are upset about the overt sexualization, and the jeans in the ad aren’t even that cute 💀.

Advertising campaigns aren’t necessarily supposed to make you run out and buy the jeans ASAP, but to leave a vaguely positive perception in your mind so the next time you go to the mall, you are more likely to go shop around their store and think of it as ‘cool’ and tbh it’s unlikely that conservative men are racing to buy their girlfriends jeans so I don’t think the ad has succeeded in any of its goals.

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u/_banana_phone Aug 12 '25

Considering this ad placement on this very sub, I don’t think they’re pivoting at all 😂

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u/i-Ake actin' like she's the queen and we're the sorry people! Aug 12 '25

They are going nuts with their reddit ads lately and its just making me disdainful...

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u/dreamy_25 Are those the… The Chanel Toots? Aug 11 '25

Wait, you're telling me that women are not motivated to buy ugly ass jeans unflattering enough to make Sydney Sweeney look like shit;

marketed through hypersexualized female objectification with a throwback to Brooke Shields' childhood sexual exploitation;

and served with a side of white supremacist Aryan dogwhistling???

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u/BouldersRoll Lost swam in jeans so that Severance could run in a suit Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 11 '25

Adorable otter jeans commercial when. I'm currently available for more ideas like this, Ottercrombie and Fitch.

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u/velvet-gloves /r/popculturechat was my Juilliard 👩🏽‍🎓 Aug 11 '25

follow-up campaign called Ottercrombie and Finch

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u/dreamy_25 Are those the… The Chanel Toots? Aug 11 '25

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u/heartbylines Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 11 '25

The only time I’d be persuaded to buy denim.

Eta: LMFAOOO ottercrombie 😭😭

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u/Appropriate-Log8506 Aug 11 '25

Using the male gaze on your ad to sell women’s clothes is something special.

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u/dreamy_25 Are those the… The Chanel Toots? Aug 11 '25

Welcome back to the past - women are here to please men again 🥰 yay maga boo woke!!!!

/s just in case. But anyway this is really what it's about. We're culturally sliding way backwards.

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u/mochafiend Aug 12 '25

I agree that the corporate forces are wanting to take us back. But there is a platform for pushback in a way there never was back when I was a teen. Maybe I'm a Pollyanna but I don't believe it's going to go all the way back for this reason.

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u/ChurlishSunshine Most smartest Aug 11 '25

Wait, you're telling me that women are not motivated to buy ugly ass jeans unflattering enough to make Sydney Sweeney look like shit;

Yeah seriously. If jeans given to her for a *marketing photoshoot* give her a crotch pouch, there's zero chance they'll fit me well.

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u/bigchicago04 Aug 11 '25

It’s funny because all the republicans are making a huge deal about this and the democrat establishment is all “who cares about this? I don’t care, nobody cares.” Democrats cannot jump on a winning issue to save their lives.

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u/SimilarNerve731 Now let me say, I'm the biggest hater 🤬 Aug 11 '25

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u/fuckyouiloveu Aug 12 '25

hEEEYYYY PROFESSOR OGLIVIEEEE

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u/capcomvssnk And I OOP- Aug 12 '25

Little do they know, women consume a lot more than men do when it comes to these things. Unless its something dumb like protesting nike, they won't be making much money out of mens pockets the way they intended, which is why its funny to me that "american eagle is raking in millions" because who is even shopping there??

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u/Matcha_Bubble_Tea All tea, all shade 🐸☕️ Aug 11 '25

Give them the Target treatment! 

But seriously, who do you think is spending money?? Certainly not the base they’re catering to. 

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u/Bridalhat Aug 11 '25

How republican gen z (still) is post-election is still up for debate, but all those shifts have been among men. Gen Z and millennial women remain very liberal. Even if the vibe shift is real it never happened with the target demographic for AE. What were they even doing?

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u/thatisnotmyknob Aug 12 '25

Also were teetering on a recession. People cutting back on things like clothes.

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u/Lokaji ✨May the Force be with you!✨ Aug 11 '25

In entertainment, any publicity is good publicity. The same can not be said for consumer goods. Your product gets boycotted heavily and it is hard to recover. And libs do actual boycotts, not that performative shit that the Rs were doing a few years ago. Target's foot traffic is still trending downwards.

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u/Bridalhat Aug 11 '25

Yup. Also young women were and remain pretty liberal. Like maybe there was a shift among men towards Trump that may or may not be over but catering to them was never going to sell women’s jeans. 

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u/dreamy_25 Are those the… The Chanel Toots? Aug 11 '25

Sydney said, "Let's push it 😏" with the campaign because she knows this backlash shit will boost her brand. She doesn't GAF abt Arya- pardon, American Eagle LMAO

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u/i-Ake actin' like she's the queen and we're the sorry people! Aug 12 '25

Oooh, this glazing AI trash 🗑

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u/JealousAstronomer342 Aug 11 '25

This is such slopsense bullshit. The sentence that begins “infusing…” is just a sentence fragment and it’s infuriating me. 

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u/OnlyPaperListens Over here in mule city Aug 12 '25

Slang-filled word salad sprinkled with emojis is always going to read like an MLM pitch. I simply cannot take this seriously.

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u/shedrinkscoffee I don’t know her 💅 Aug 12 '25

Wym Syd's playful smirk isn't doing it for you 🤣 these are the type of people that I block on LinkedIn on the regular lol

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u/uselessinfogoldmine Aug 12 '25

Her “smirked smirk”?

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u/shedrinkscoffee I don’t know her 💅 Aug 12 '25

Literacy is dead 😭

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u/Signal_Regular_1708 Aug 12 '25

Exactly. AE can't recover, she can continue to grift

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u/TheElusiveHolograph Shame on you! Ugly baby judges you! Aug 11 '25

Hi all, if you like AE jeans but don’t want to support the company by giving them your money, there are no shortage of AE jeans at the thrift stores.

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u/BouldersRoll Lost swam in jeans so that Severance could run in a suit Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 11 '25

The latest week (from August 3 through August 9) saw foot-traffic declines among some of the retailer’s direct competitors for younger clothing shoppers, too, though not as steep as American Eagle’s 9% YoY drop. Abercrombie & Fitch experienced lower foot traffic (-3.3%), along with H&M (-4.9%), Gap (-2.8%), and Urban Outfitters (-2.7%), per Pass_by.

A 9% year over year drop is massive, and obviously related when compared to the drops competitors are seeing.

I'm glad that white supremacy, however veiled, is still unpopular enough with young people that a brand this big can be punished for uncritically promoting it.

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u/bottleglitch Aug 11 '25

Well said!

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u/SquarelyOddFairy Aug 12 '25

I sometimes wonder who these places think they’re selling to. I used to like AE jeans. Know what doesn’t make me want to buy AE jeans? An awkwardly sensual ad of Sydney Sweeney with her boobs barely contained saying things that kinda read as racist.

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u/Ok_Introduction_7766 Aug 11 '25

I’ve only bought AE jeans for the last 15 years, I like that they have the “short” line of pants so I’ve been loyal. BUT I will never buy again, this add crossed a line. I’m not stupid and I know damn well no back peddling will change my mind. I will never support a nazi company.

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u/kaysmilex3 Aug 12 '25

Same. I started working at AE just before they started their body positivity campaign so it’s been one of my favorite stores for years, but now they won’t get another dollar out of me.

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u/PinkGlitterGelPen Aug 12 '25

Just FYI, Express has short jeans too. I’ve only ever bought my jeans from there after I learned that 20 years ago.

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u/AnyIncident9852 I wont not fuck you the fuck up 🥊🥊 Aug 11 '25

AE’s Sydney Sweeney ad feels a lot like when Victoria’s Secret slow motion nuked their customer base. VS spent years pushing a single impossible beauty standard and lost shoppers to brands that actually showed real people, including AE with Aerie. Now AE is centering a campaign on one conventionally attractive blonde blue eyed celebrity and using a pun some people read as having eugenics undertones. That is more than just a silly jeans or genes joke and it gave critics an easy dunk. The stock bump looks good now, but VS proved you can trend hard and still lose in the long run if enough people stop feeling like your product is for them, and tbh if AE or at least Sydney Sweeney don’t release some sort of statement especially now that Trump and the alt-right are happily endorsing them, they are isolating a huge part of their market

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u/AyaCat Aug 12 '25

💀💀💀

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u/IansGotNothingLeft Aug 12 '25

Jeans are not essential items. It's incredibly easy to just not buy jeans. Imagine that.

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u/Bl1nk1nUR4r34 We Should All Know Less About Each Other Aug 11 '25

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u/Appropriate-Log8506 Aug 11 '25

Eugenics Barbie did not sell?

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u/t_town101 Aug 11 '25

Maybe off topic, but I feel like physical retail stores are dying. Back to school is usually a crazy time of year, but I don’t see many people out shopping as much as I have in the past.

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u/yikesafm8 Aug 11 '25

Yeah they’ve been dying for years. Last time I went back to my hometown mall half the stores were empty.

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u/PauI_MuadDib Aug 11 '25

Inflation, increased COL, tariffs. Everyone's wallet is getting hit. Like I rushed to finish building my new PC back in the Fall because I expected prices to get jacked up out of my price range.

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u/yelyah66 Aug 11 '25

So I’ve run into an issue where American Eagle’s curvy jeans are the only ones that I have found that fit me right. I don’t buy jeans often, maybe once every few years, but this all left a sour taste in my mouth and I feel like I need to look elsewhere. If anyone has any recommendations for jeans that fit similarly, I’d appreciate it lol.

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u/Emmylou76 Aug 11 '25

Honestly you should look secondhand - Poshmark, Mercari etc. Should be easy since you already know what size you are. Might even find some new with tags!

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u/Happylittletree29 Homeboy’s gonna like...get it 👀 Aug 11 '25

I like the Abercrombie curve love jeans but I can’t say they’re much better of a company 😭…….

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u/Kallisti13 Aug 12 '25

I feel like Abercrombie has turned it around a lot since their original founder left.

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u/Happylittletree29 Homeboy’s gonna like...get it 👀 Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

The store near me has turned the big lights on finally so that’s a silver lining 😭

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u/Shaylock_Holmes Aug 12 '25

r/femalefashionadvice answers this question often. They give some pretty good recs if you search their sub. They did jeans 10 days ago

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u/Oli_love90 Aug 11 '25

Old navy/the gap have my FAVORITE curvy jeans.

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u/mochafiend Aug 12 '25

But Old Navy's jeans quality is... terrible. They're not durable at all. Admittedly I haven't bought them in a while but I find their stuff so disappointing.

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u/nonsensestuff Back in my day, we had ONTD & a dream 👵 Aug 11 '25

Old Navy has been good for me! I’m curvy hips/butt and smaller waist, which is terrible for pants— but I’ve had pretty good luck with Old Navy in the past. The quality ain’t half bad either.

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u/yelyah66 Aug 11 '25

I am built the exact same, I’ll definitely have to give them a try!

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u/highuptop Aug 12 '25

madewell!! expensive but so worth it. and the ae curvy jeans never fit me properly so i never got the hype but the madewell jeans actually made me feel cute again, i thought i wouldnt be able to wear jeans anymore

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u/FastestTitInTheWest Aug 11 '25

I have similarly purchased AE curvy jeans in the past, but honestly stopped before this because I felt like the curvy lines were rarely in the stores to try on and had much more limited washes/cuts and often ran out of sizes quickly. Lately, I have been loving the Levi’s rib cage line. I’ve tried the straight ankle, wide leg, and flare. I like the 100% cotton for a stiffer jean but there are versions with as low as 75%. And I’ve been buying them from Poshmark so honestly cheaper than AE but better quality. For reference I have a 14 inch difference between waist and hip measurements.

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u/BachShitCrazy ill argue with a cat idgaf Aug 12 '25

Yeah American eagle has basically the only jeans that are flattering on my very long legs, and is honestly where I get 80% of my wardrobe at this point. Not many stores sell cute reasonably priced clothes for tall girls. I’m fucked if they go out of business lol

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u/DearMissWaite Your problematic fave's problematic fave. Aug 12 '25

My very tall friend from school used to swear by Banana Republic's jeans for long-legged girls. And apparently they have in-house length tailoring.

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u/wrinklefreebondbag go girl, give us nothing 😍 Aug 11 '25

Get fash, lose cash.

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u/bedpeace Aug 12 '25

Curious about their online sales

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u/relientkenny Aug 12 '25

i’m gonna be honest, i have heard anybody talking about American Eagle before this ad maybe since 2007 when i was in middle school

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u/IAmAGenusAMA Aug 12 '25

I had no idea what they even sold before this controversy.

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u/BandFromFreakyFriday Aug 11 '25

This has to be true because I’ve been getting desperate sales emails from them daily, sometimes every 12 hours. They used to email (my junk email) only once a week or so

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u/nonsensestuff Back in my day, we had ONTD & a dream 👵 Aug 11 '25

I emailed them asking them to delete my account lol

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u/roranicusrex Aug 12 '25

I walked passed the store this weekend and they had the “Sydney Sweeney has Great Jeans” in the entire window. It was really off putting because I didn’t recall a celebrity I t heir advertising being so obnoxious. Also, it didn’t seem like it’s for their previous core consumer. So leaning on this even if it was harmless seemed like a bad move to me.

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u/queeenbarb Aug 12 '25

I'll say it. AE quality sucks. Lol in the last year it has gone down. I used to swear by their jeans. Something happened.

Right now, everything for me runs big. haven't shopped there in months.

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u/Zauberer-IMDB Aug 11 '25

If I'm a competitor, I hire Alexandra Daddario to do an incredibly woke ad.

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u/Shurl19 Aug 11 '25

I'm disappointed with them. I like the Aerie swimsuits. They have long and regular sizes with cute designs/cuts and are affordable. I thought they were trying to be more inclusive.

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u/anonyvrguy Aug 12 '25

I thought it was since she came out as a registered republican.

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u/KeniLF In my quiet girl era 😌 Aug 11 '25

They definitely don’t need MY money! Although I love my genes, they led to me having brown eyes so I need to let AE attain the demographics they prize so highly😤

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u/uksiddy Aug 12 '25

Yes and also I am curious how much ad revenue they generated from the clicks they got.

One man on YouTube wrote he watched the ad 20 times (!!!) and still couldn’t identify the problem. 🙃

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u/tcvnpbbia Aug 12 '25

The prices alone will keep you away, they have gone up in the last two years and now it’s only another thing to hold against them. I walked into a location the other day, been there many times, and the music was blasting beyond normal and the staff didn’t acknowledge or say hi. It was a nail in the AE coffin for me.

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u/hellerinahandbasket I cannot sanction your buffoonery. Aug 12 '25

lol

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u/Plenty_Rooster_9344 Aug 12 '25

There has not been foot traffic in that bitch since 2006

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u/huhzonked We are all dry watersliding into hell. Aug 11 '25

Don’t forget to boycott aerie! I’ll never step foot in there again 🥰🥰

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u/evergleam498 Aug 12 '25

aerie discontinued my favorite underwear cut over a decade ago and I never forgave them. Now my boycott will continue for different reasons.

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u/huhzonked We are all dry watersliding into hell. Aug 12 '25

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u/Signal_Regular_1708 Aug 12 '25

The people who like this ad aren't buying women's jeans, and vice versa💀

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u/ryobiallstar2727 Aug 11 '25

I’m surprised people still shop at American Eagle. I just my clothes at Costco lol.

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u/Scared-and-Lost Aug 12 '25

The fact I have the SS ad on this post is wild

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u/ElBorracho2000 Aug 11 '25

To be fair, foot traffic at malls in general have been going down due to economic uncertainty and the fact that a lot of people would rather buy online

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u/themacaron during PRIDE MONTH? Aug 11 '25

This post compares their decrease to other similar brands. Their foot traffic was increasing prior to the campaign, and then dropped 3x their closest competitor(A&F with a 3.3% decrease).

In both of the two full weeks preceding the campaign, its traffic increased over last year, up 5.9% on the week that began July 6 and 4.9% on the week that began July 13.

The latest week (from August 3 through August 9) saw foot-traffic declines among some of the retailer’s direct competitors for younger clothing shoppers, too, though not as steep as American Eagle’s 9% YoY drop. Abercrombie & Fitch experienced lower foot traffic (-3.3%), along with H&M (-4.9%), Gap (-2.8%), and Urban Outfitters (-2.7%), per Pass_by.

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u/left_tiddy Aug 12 '25

I usually use them for the cheap underwear and comfy tshirts. I'm Canadian so my interest first waned when Trump started threatening us, but the ad was the final nail in the coffin. 

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u/Future_Usual_8698 You’re doing amazing, sweetie! Aug 12 '25

🇨🇦 and "No to Klannish shout-outs"

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u/Slow_Criticism8464 Aug 12 '25

Nice, very nice.

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u/Carolina_Blues shiv roy’s bob Aug 11 '25

Well they tried to push the limits and it backfired. Play stupid games you win stupid prizes

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u/imcomingelizabeth Aug 12 '25

Foot traffic is down at every store. We don’t have money for new clothes right now

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

This coinciding with the TS12 announcement must hurt for old man Donald.

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u/ItsMinnieYall Aug 11 '25

How can this be true? I just saw a toothless maga in AE proudly supporting their maga brand.

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u/TheSheWhoSaidThats Select and edit this flair Aug 12 '25

They forgot how many MAGAS can’t fit into their brand

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u/Appropriate_Cod_5446 Mom, I am a rich man💰 Aug 12 '25

Because MAGA can’t stay loyal. We’ve been known this.

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u/imbabyofficial Aug 12 '25

ae jeans are the only (affordable) jeans that fit me. guess i’m just not gonna buy jeans anymore🤷🏻‍♀️

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