Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 2)

[Alpacx]

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

Please don't post Nazi propaganda in this thread, thanks.

Eat my whole ass.

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[benji]

Never thought I'd see the day where people on TikTok are having more thoughtful dialogue about current events than Era, complete with evidence-backed arguments that are particularly noteworthy, well-spoken, and easily digestible.

It's like I'm being whisked away to the lunch table that thinks peak humor is mixing chocolate milk with mashed potatoes every time I come on here.

Y'all need to step it up, man.

[DavidCroquet]

I'm very mature and have serious discussions with informed participants on a wide variety of critically urgent social matters.

Also my only frame of reference for the maturity of discourse is high school lunchtime.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

I think you missed the part where things like this *do* matter. Politics is no longer its own separate entity; it is inherently intertwined with social media, pop culture, and our everyday interactions with people. There doesn't exist a world where we can afford to ignore something as reckless and dangerous as this advertisement — meager as it seems at first. Because inch-by-inch, things like this are shifting the needle to a place where inflammatory rhetoric is further normalized. I see it all the time on social media as a person of color. Have you noticed the uptick in racism against Black or Asian people on social media? It always starts with something trivial, then it becomes permanently entrenched into our socialization. Just because we've been dealing with the implosion of white supremacist ideology for a while doesn't mean it's slowing down anytime soon.

Are there bigger things to worry about? Of course, there is. But it's still something worth having a conversation about...especially when it is as blatantly obvious as this.

Genuinely more disturbed by seeing so much glad hand-waving of this obvious dog whistle than by the campaign itself.

This is what I was just about to post myself, it's so blatant especially in this political climate people are practically infantilizing businesses as if they couldn't possibly know the outcome of their messaging

incredible thread

This is the same forum that bans people for "white fragility".

[DavidCroquet]

I'm having better discussions over on the--literal (like, literally-literal, not internet-literal)--trump glazing app. 

Ya'll need to step it up.

[Potato]

You know it's a good forum when Boredfrom and potato are allowed to absolutely despise each other 

I don't despise him. Quite the opposite. I just like being a cunt sometimes.

[benji]

The thoughtful and evidence backed argument of "this dangerous jeans ad is clearly advancing a plot to exterminate non-Aryans in a non-Aryan nation."

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

I just like being a cunt sometimes.

You're very good at it. 

[Polident]

How can you can anti genetics but pro cum?

[benji]

SHE HAS LANDED: https://www.resetera.com/threads/american-eagle-sparks-backlash-for-touting-sydney-sweeneys-great-jeans.1255467/page-6#post-143206077

A blonde, blue-eyed, sexualized cis white woman delivering a monologue about "good jeans" carries a lot of historical context with it. And very little of it good.

It's really this for me. Like, I'm not outraged (mainly because that would require having expectations of better and I don't anymore), but this ad has the stink that it does because of the historical context of all the elements put together.

Granted, this forum largely gave Liam Neeson a pass so I don't know why I expected anything even more subtle than that not be dismissed. Just another day.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

I can't believe that forum gave Liam Neeson a pass for not killing a random black guy.

[Taco Bell Tower]

All of this is intentional, deliberately designed to draw attention to American Eagle at the expense of thinly veiled allusions to racism that'll make those who understand rightfully upset. And that'll draw the attention of those who think they're too rational and logical and composed to get upset or can't see the problem with talking down on others for being upset over racist innuendos.

Having Sydney Sweeney as the model, someone whose very existence sexist weirdos weaponize to attack other women and "wokeness," was enough to generate discourse. They realized they can generate an even bigger controversy that'll draw attention to the brand with the jeans/genes pun and add more fuel to the fire.

But I guess it's more important to prove you don't get offended.

I responded to someone who dismissed an entire 6-page discussion about racist/white supremacist dog whistles with a laughing emoji.

But I'm the one being condescending.

Got it.

You're referring to like two people in a 6-page thread and dishonestly trying to paint the entire discussion as "Sydney Sweeney is a MAGA Nazi." You know that's not the case.

and saying this is an obvious white supremacist dogwhistle from her and AE.

It is an obvious white supremacist dog whistle from AE.

Multiple people have backed that claim up using logic, the old ad it is clearly referencing, the timing of its release relative to how mainstream Nazism has become, etc.

Jeff uses 25 posts per page?

The Brooke Shields ad is white supremacist?

Also, THE TIMING.

This is just a tone-deaf ad, that says a whole lot about the cultural shift to the right we are currently in the midst of.

Or maybe people assume the worst because things are already pretty bleak, man.

I don't understand how people can look at this ad in the context of today's political climate and fail to derive any meaning from it. This isn't a situation where it requires you to wade through years of historical and sociological material to understand fully. The deliberate usage of genomic terminology with a blue-eyed, "blonde" haired woman is quite blatant in what it's trying to convey if you weren't asleep at the wheel while your seventh-grade English class deconstructed To Kill a Mockingbird.

Don't know what this is but it may just be blissful ignorance, weaponized incompetence, or both.

In the middle of the Obama administration, this is just kind of a corny joke. Today, as we stare down the barrel of fascism, it's no longer a pun, it's borderline a threat.

for the record, i left this forum a long time ago apart from occasional lurking because as a woman i felt talked down to constantly in amber heard threads by men like you. a lot of you don't actually seem care about women and minorities beyond being performatively outraged.

You and I have never had a single interaction before this thread so I can't speak to any arguments you may have had with someone else in an Amber Heard thread three years ago.

But in the end, you're deciding to call anyone who takes issue with this ad "performatively outraged." The majority of people in this thread are perfectly calm and level-headed in their criticism of the ad. That doesn't mean you have to agree. But as you said yourself, you haven't posted on this site for years, and your return was to defend American Eagle's problematic Sydney Sweeney ad.

Why is this something that you are so passionately defending? People have given sound arguments, backed up with facts and history, as to why they find the ad problematic. And the backbone of your pushback is just to say that everyone is being ridiculous and that they need to leave their houses.

For the record: your tone is super shitty and needlessly aggressive.

Well, your response to people criticizing an ad for having white supremacist dog whistles, which have been backed up throughout the thread, was to dismiss them all with a laughing emoji.

i don't care about defending billion dollar corporations. that's your thing.

Again, I have no idea who you are. You have like 60 posts and haven't posted in 3 years before this thread yet you're coming after me with weird personal attacks.

You do not have to agree with the people who think this ad is problematic.

But this, as a response to people criticizing an ad that they believe has white supremacist dog whistles?

it really feels like people on here don't go outside sometimes.

That's bad form. You didn't enter the thread to have a conversation or debate. You came here to belittle people.

Jeff has to be smashing the report button inbetween his mansplaining and refreshing his Nazi feed.

Wake up, babe.  New factually incorrect line

[Snoopy]

Not sure what will be more entertaining when Maxwell is freed. Alex Jones and his band of scum trying to come up with excuses for Trump. Or ree's outrage.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

How can you can anti genetics but pro cum?

That's when you only beat off to ugly people.

[simiansmarts]

The marketing team who came up with this ad must be hooting and hollering right now. 
 
All this easy outrage publicity from a simple 'jeans = genes' pun taken from an 1980s commercial.

[Taco Bell Tower]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/a-year-ago-kamala-harris-joined-the-race-how-would-you-grade-her-campaign.1255548/

A Votes: 21 3.1%
B Votes: 88 12.9%
C Votes: 143 21.0%
D Votes: 144 21.2%
F Votes: 284 41.8%

First post

Umm, an F? She freaking lost.

Okay, let me put it this way. The circumstances of the race were stacked against her, yeah, but I never found her likable and it was annoying how she refused to move away from Biden or challenge him on anything.

[DavidCroquet]

it's going to be hilarious when AE runs the second wave of this campaign with the most identitarian star you can possibly imagine.

I can already hear the "ah, well nevertheless..."

[HaughtyFrank]

Could you imagine Jodie Turner Smith, for example, doing this exact ad? With that same monologue?

I couldn't

This seems like a pretty strange argument when we have black people openly celebrating their blackness all the time?

Wesley Snipes saying "Always bet on black" is something people wouldn't even register today. Chris Evans saying "Always bet on white" on the other hand...

[benji]

it's going to be hilarious when AE runs the second wave of this campaign with the most identitarian star you can possibly imagine.

I can already hear the "ah, well nevertheless..."

They're doing it just to create this kind of plausible deniability in chocolate milk and mashed potatoes stirrers like you, step it the fuck up.

[benji]

[HaughtyFrank]

TERF CAMPAIGN

[benji]

Just gonna drop this video and dip from this thread. We may just be helpless after all.

33 minute video, should I watch it until the person defines eugenics wrong?

[Alpacx]

Just gonna drop this video and dip from this thread. We may just be helpless after all.

33 minute video, should I watch it until the person defines eugenics wrong?

Save some time and read a transcript until they get the definition.

[benji]

@Autumn-m9r
47 minutes ago
I’ve always found Sydney to be beautiful. That’s not the issue.

Camps are being built. ICE is still separating families. And now American Eagle is releasing ads casually nodding to recessive genes. If it hadn’t been her , AE would have hired someone else . They knew what they were doing .


When people speak up, they’re written off as jealous or “anti-hotness.” But this was never about a hot girl in jeans.

It’s about the culture we’re normalizing and who gets mocked for caring.

@rhysgrealish5227
1 hour ago
I think she’s in some upcoming film called Americana. Boycott it.

@RuztyNails
1 hour ago
I don't comment on anything ever, but here we are. My partner is a store manager at American Eagle and has only stuck with the company because of how generally progressive they are. When he saw the ad, he was truly devastated. I can't believe that a company that doubled down on DEI earlier this year did this. I'm no shill for any brand or corperation, but geez I thought Eagle was better than this.

@pineapplewhatever5906
1 hour ago (edited)
Oh my god. If I were on my own, I would have literally read the ad as "oh just a pun lol" without actually thinking about it. This is scary.

@andiedae
1 hour ago (edited)
This is too many instances of her being cozy with MAGA:  Her birthday post with her folks in MAGA gear. She went to Bezos’ wedding.  Now this…

Great job Sydney! Way to jeopardize the very long awaited season of Euphoria.

The Venn diagram of the ppl who watch Euphoria and ppl who are ok 👌🏾 with eugenics are two totally  different circles

We finally don’t have to deal with Hogan and here’s Sweeney more than happy to fill the void 😒

@jondillinger8117
2 hours ago
This will be in marketing text books in ten years, hopefully as a way to destroy your brand.

@Dread-HeadedTexan
2 hours ago
Who is Sydney? Why is she important? Even more important, what about her is attractive?

[killamajig]

There's literally zero eugenics in that ad at all. Eugenics is not making true or even opinionated statements about genetics.

NOT EUGENICS: Gingers are soulless mutants with corrupt genetics.
EUGENICS: Gingers should be forcibly bred out of the population by the state.

I just realized since I'm old and childless and currently disabled, I've been practicing eugenics by not having kids.

Glad I never liked me anyways. I always knew I was a Nazi.

[benji]

Save some time and read a transcript until they get the definition.

This is the entirety of the argument that the ad is eugenicist:

NOT FOUND

It's just asserted that it is and this is fascist:

Commentators on the right are laughing at liberal leftist snow flakes and saying it’s just an ad. The problem is that context matters, in art, in film, and yes even in ads, they exist within the context of the society in which they are being released. And American Eagle would not have made and released this likely incredibly expensive ad campaign if they didn’t think it would move product and convince today’s buyers to buy their jeans. So let me provide some context. I promise this is important for the other topics in today’s video, just bear with me.

So moving beyond the very obvious issue with declaring that blue eyes are preferable genes when your literal actual brand name is AMERICAN EAGLE? The ads themselves were a very clear homage to a series of incredibly infamous Calvin Klein ads from 1980 starring a then-15 year old Brooke Shields. Everything from discussing the science of genes [insert clip] to the very creepy babyish vocal fry meant to sound simultaneously sexual and vulnerable [insert clip] the Sweeney ads were a direct imitation of the Calvin Klein ads, almost to the point of lacking any original creativity. And while it is creepy to emulate a series of ads roundly condemned at the time for being incredibly inappropriate, some were banned in many countries, for sexualizing a literal child, unlike the 15 year old Brooke Shields, Sydney Sweeney is 27 years old and, as far as we know, though like I said a think a whole separate episode could be made on this, likely consented to the portrayal. She also read the script and was like hell yeah blue eyes are good genes I’m ready to put my face behind that sentiment and go all in on the creepy baby voice. So her complicity in this is pretty clear.

And I think the more important context is the history of eugenics as it relates to fascism not only in 1940s Germany but also yes, here, in America, because Nazis, including the mustache man himself, actually took a hell of a lot of inspiration from American eugenics.

...

This is a pattern that is easily recognizable from history that is now becoming vogue again in America. To be clear, it never went away, but now that you can publicly declare yourself a fascist and then raise tens of thousands of dollars from people who support you for it, we have reached a level of comfort with fascist ideologies that is so clear and in vogue that American Eagle made a bet that they could recycle it and sell us jeans. And their stock saw a 15% bump in value in the wake of the controversial Sydney Sweeney ad, with conservatives lauding the actress for bringing about the end of woke advertising. So even while they’re trying to gaslight us into thinking we’re overreacting because it’s “just an ad” in the same breath they are acknowledging that the messaging in the ad signalled the end of woke advertising. So you admit it. You admit that the ad was fascist.

And it makes sense that we’re seeing this pro-eugenics ideology flourishing right now. Things are lining up in ways very similar to the beginning of the 20th century. Income inequality is higher than it's ever been. Because of that, people feel like they’re fighting over scraps, so outsiders coming in to take what little is left for them are seen as an existential threat. The ruling elite exploit that fear by playing into racist stereotypes, building an us vs them mentality that distracts us from gaining any sense of class consciousness and instead gets the dominant majority to fall in line behind racist talking points and bunk science in favor of an authoritarian leader who is the only one that can protect them from the onslaught of the masses. The fear has reached such a fever pitch that people are willing to support policies and say things that just a few years ago would have been so utterly rejected by society that those people would have become pariahs. Instead they are now so in vogue that fast fashion retailers are adopting fascist talking points in order to be “edgy” and sell jeans. Fascists rely on bunk science and misconstrued data in order to convince us that their programs and ideologies are based in anything other than fearmongering in the name of greater control and power. They need eugenics, adopted into the cultural zeitgeist and rebranded as totally normal and above board, something so mundane it can be used to sell blue jeans, because it helps to dehumanize the regime’s victims so that mass resistance goes away and we’re all willing to turn a blind eye. Because those people aren’t really people, not like us. They’re subhuman. They’re terrorists. They’re criminals. They’re so inherently violent it’s in their DNA, they shouldn’t be allowed into society or to procreate. What the state is doing is right and good because it protects the correct people from the subhumans that make the world dangerous and bad. Ignore the data that proves immigrants commit less crime. Ignore the science that disproves inherited criminality. Ignore the war crimes. It is happening on a global scale, it is happening to the people in Gaza who are being systematically starved into a mass casualty event, on purpose, under the assumption that the world will look the other way, and it is an ideology that has been perfected in the United States and exported around the globe. Trump perpetuates it with his hateful executive order criminalizing mental illness and homelessness, and American Eagle and Sydney Sweeney are complicit in normalizing fascist ideology in popular culture and turning a massive profit on it.

What do we do? Continue speaking out about it. Don’t look away, not from Gaza but also not from your neighbors starving in the streets of the richest country on earth. And a lot of the policies Trump is proposing in this executive order rely on state compliance to enact, so if you live in a red state I would think long and hard about getting the fuck out, at least to a blue state if not out of the country entirely.

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/american-eagle-sparks-backlash-for-touting-sydney-sweeneys-great-jeans.1255467/page-6#post-143206731

Did that Atlanta cameo earn him a lot of good will with people? I watched it for the first time recently and was really shocked when he popped up.

Well, Donald Glover himself really wanted him to get that cameo and I have my misgivings with him (not just as a result of that), but in general I don't think most people cared to begin with. Pretty much everyone was like "What's the big deal? He didn't go through with it," as if feelings of wanting to lynch a Black man are fuckin' normal (which, you know, fair in a white supremacist world.) Like, anti-Black racism just don't be on people's radar like that.

liam neeson literally said he wanted to kill a black man, which is roughly a trillion times more blatant than this and it was disgusting. please don't think i would ever excuse that.

Yeah, it was disgusting and yet most of the forum gave him a pass for it, meaning it doesn't surprise me that subsequently the forum is rolling their eyes today at some joke about a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman in an ad about "good jeans/genes" while America is on one right now with regards to white supremacy. If you didn't give him a pass, then I'm not actually talking to you.

I love the common defense of "non-white people use the eugenicist concept of 'good genes' all the time so of course this can't be a racist thing" as if there's not a) a long history in this country of common idioms and actions that are incredibly racist and b) that non-white people would never repeat those idioms.

"Hey guys, it might _seem_ like a stadium full of people in Cleveland/DC/Atlanta/Kansas City dressing up like racist caricatures and doing 'the tomahawk chop' might be just a bit racist but those stadiums have plenty of non-white folk joining in so obviously this isn't racist."

Pathetic-ass forum.

Folks…

If history's taught y'all nothing, it should have taught you this:

The attractive, rich, blonde white woman is going to be fine. Especially when the people she's pissed off are mostly PoC.

I don't know why this convesation keeps going back to defending her looks and/or her innocence. We know she didn't conceptualize this ad. We know that she largely collected a check.

It's the corporations and the cis white patriarchy they perpetuate and adhere to.

sorry. just a bit on edge given the implications people seem to be making about me here.

Gonna be blunt:

I don't care about the implications people are making about you here because you decided, of your own adult volition, to go hard in the paint defending some rich white woman appearing in an ad that plays into racist rhetoric while America is going through a heightened period of white supremacy, especially when you ain't even obligated to post.

Like, shit ain't about you.

American Eagle sitting back and smiling. They know even the left will have people hand waving this. Just look at the first couple pages of this thread. This company knew exactly what they are doing. You dont even need to read between the lines. Theyre throwing it right in our faces.

how many times do i have to repeat that i AGREE the ad is tone deaf and that we are ultimately on the same side? i am not defending it. it's not a good idea for an ad, especially given the political climate. i'm just not willing to believe that sydney sweeney is definitely in favour of eugenics over it and i don't think that makes me a bad person. is this how you engage with people on the same side of the political spectrum as you irl? not saying you can't disagree with other people on the left but oh my fucking god.

What? I'm not arguing on the basis of Sydney Sweeney; I'm targeting American Eagle similarly to every other person that's been repeating their argument ad nauseam. Did you not read the four or so posts that I've made beforehand? Simply put, your claim that there are non-white people who happen to say "good genes" is a negligible metric in an argument and not something that is worthy taking seriously. My usage of the word "context" is meant to convey how some things can drastically change meaning in one situation to the next. There's no way you watched this entire advertisement with knowledge of America's ongoing and historical habits and fail to see any reference to eugenics. How weird is it that you are getting upset because people are daring to push back against your argument? Discourse is what empowers academic discussion; how can you proclaim yourself to be a leftist if you can't handle pushback for two seconds?

These people are so fucking dumb.

[DavidCroquet]

white women making YouTube videos to lecture the rest of us is eugenics.

[DavidCroquet]

I actually am loving the return of noodle soup.

"you can't handle pushback. Me? I stood on business, and had my final exam docked one letter grade."

[Hap Shaughnessy]

Nepenthe has hit the thread.

Edit: dammit