Sydney Sweeney’s latest campaign for American Eagle looks, on the surface, as a manual victory. Imaging is rich in nostalgia and sleeping pills, vintage muscle cars, classic denim and a hot palette. It’s Americana with a shiny finish, tailor -made for the aesthetic sensitivities of Tiktok. On paper, it follows all the rules for creating one of the best advertisements of all time. But the Internet had other plans.
Instead of a universal boost, the campaign of Sydney Sweeney American Eagle attracted the backlash of young audiences who saw the visuals not as a harmless nostalgia but as a brilliant opinion of a very busy cultural heritage. Words like “performative”, “exclusion” and “tone-steaf” surfaced on X (Twitter), Reddit and Instagram. The return of flame raises a much greater question: has generation Z fell in love with Americaa, or does it simply ask for it?
For an average generation, I had my head scratched a little; I grew up on Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and, for my sins, the double Denim hairdresser by Bon Jovi; We have been returned to the future, the Breakfast Club, and we keep next to it. We celebrated the American dream, but we criticized it, then Nirvana exploded everything with smells like the adolescent and flower spirit, and we sang even stronger in the same book of songs.
(Image Credit: American Eagle)
So I was left to scratch my head on the American Eagle Whoo-Ha. I wouldn’t say that American Eagle decided to travel the territory of the cultural war. This is a brand built on relaxed Americana; The authenticity, freedom and expression of young and relaxed, not battle lines. However, in 2025, nothing is neutral, especially not the American flag, vintage muscle cars and vans, nor a main street tranche. For generation Z, these images do not only report freedom and youth; They have become flash points in an in progress conversation on identity, power and exclusion.
This sensitivity is not new, especially for Sydney Sweeney. In 2022, a birthday party for a family member featuring red style hats and a setting on the West theme led to an uproar online. Although Sweeney is not directly responsible and that it has never revealed its policy, the optics have sparked a collective side of the Z generation, a generation raised on media literacy, Google Strughing and a strong conscience of the subtext.
(Image Credit: American Eagle)
So why is it important now?
Generation Z is growing in an America very different from that romantic in Levi announcements in the 90s or Bruce Springsteen in the United States, a PEW research study in 2021 revealed that only 16% of adults Gen Z declared that they are “extremely proud” to be American, against 42% of baby boomers. For them, the flag is equally likely to invoke images of the division, riots of the Capitol, immigration prohibitions, the censorship of the book, because they are barbecues of backyard.
And yet, generation Z is not anti-nostalgia; Completely the opposite. Tiktok, design and artistic trends are looking greatly on retro aesthetics: think of VHS filters, disposable cameras and low -fixed country songs reconditioned for little girl’s reading lists. Americana’s aesthetics are alive and prosperous, but not without criticism. According to the 2024 brand tracker of Ypulse, 72% of consumers of generation Z say that it is important that brands “represent something” and 66% think that brands should “recognize social problems”. If you are going to borrow the visual language of the American heritage, you would better bring the context too.
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Some brands do things right. Levi’s has become a progressive heritage label, stories of sustainability, racial equity and LGBTQ + stories through inclusive campaigns. The Cowboy of Beyoncé, Carter, is another masterclass in reinvention of Americana. She did not reject it, she remixed it. Recover country music through a black feminist lens. And the artists of the Z generation can defend Americaa but according to their conditions, like Lana Del Rey and, obviously, Taylor Swift, who has become the golden ticket for the change of music and Country imagery in something that everyone can love.
This is where American Eagle campaign stumbles. The visuals are polite, but the context is absent. A magnificent Sydney plan based on a rusty camaro does not feel like a love letter in America; It looks like a fantasy of sepia tones that ignores who built these roads, which left behind, and which was never represented in the first place.
For a generation commonly in Photoshop, deep counterfeits and signs of protest, raised under the spectrum of September 11, the rise in social media, climate anxiety, recession and the coche, a flag is not only a flag, a slogan landed differently and jeans, well … Blue Double-Denim feels loaded.
(Image Credit: American Eagle)
The future of Americana
But this is not all bad news. Gen Z does not cancel Americana, they modify it. They want stories that include them and others, not only evoke basic nostalgia, but scratch under the surface of what is celebrated. This means the freedom to romanianize dusty guests and old trucks, but also the responsibility of highlighting the people who have been excluded from these stories for decades.
If American Eagle wants to keep his crown as a denim of young people culture, he does not need to abandon the fantasy of the road, but perhaps this time, he picks up some more passengers along the way. Because Gen Z does not want to burn the flag, they just want it to mean something more significant than servile worship for A Seen from the past.
