By The Numbers: Only 12% Found Sydney Sweeney Ad ‘Offensive,’ But Democrats Didn’t Get The Joke

The internet exploded with viral complaints about American Eagle’s latest ad campaign — featuring actress Sydney Sweeney — but the poll numbers suggest that the outrage was driven by a very small number of people whose influence is largely limited to cyberspace.

The ad campaign featured Sweeney in a number of still photos and videos, wearing American Eagle jeans in several different styles. The tag-line was simple: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” But critics harped on the obvious play on words and claimed that because Sweeney is white and has blonde hair and blue eyes, the ad was a Nazi-esque dogwhistle suggesting that her “genes” were superior.

Indeed, a poll from The Economist/YouGov indicated that overall, only about 12% of respondents believed the ad campaign was offensive, while the vast majority either found it clever (39%) or had no strong opinion (40%).

YouGov has Sweeney data – 12% of Americans find it offensive.

The gender gap is bigger than the political gap on whether the ad is “offensive” (7% of men, 17% of women)

Men are also more likely to find the ad “clever” (49% of men, 31% of women). pic.twitter.com/SMQGsWM66S

— Will Jordan (@williamjordann) August 12, 2025

Democrats (18%) were more likely than Republicans (7%) or independents (13%) to find the ads “offensive,” But even among Democrats, more found it “clever” (22%) than “offensive.” Far more independents (38%) and Republicans (57%) said that they’d found the ad to be “clever.”

The gender gap was also pronounced, with 17% of women saying that the ads were “offensive” compared to only 7% of men who said the same. On the opposite side, nearly one third of the women polled (31%) said the ads were “clever” compared to nearly half of the men (49%).

By race, black Americans were more likely to find the ads “offensive,” but only slightly. According to the data, 16% of black Americans found it so, compared to 12% of white Americans and only 7% of Hispanic Americans. Across all three demographics, more found the ads to be “clever”: 21% of black Americans; 43% of white Americans; and 40% of Hispanic Americans.

The poll was conducted between from August 9-11, and posed the questions to 1,635 adults in the United States