We’re watching the collapse of cultural attention spans in real time, where everything—everything—gets processed through a political lens, a moral filter, and a trauma response.
We don’t react to content anymore. We react to what we think that content says about us, and then we demand an apology for how it made us feel.
This is the new internet economy. And it’s booming.
Outrage is no longer an unfortunate byproduct of cultural tension. It’s a business model. Brands don’t just sell products anymore—they sell positions in the culture war index. Outrage is baked into the strategy. It’s cheaper than a Super Bowl ad, faster than a Nielsen report, and more potent than traditional PR. All it takes is the right provocation and a few million people ready to project their trauma onto a marketing campaign.
Sounds like a fluke, but it’s become the actual infrastructure.
Outrage is the raw material itself. A commodity. A scalable input. If you can trigger it, you can monetize it. If you can control it, you can wield it. And if you can survive it, you can win the algorithm.
We’ve entered an era where attention is the economy, and outrage is the most frictionless path to engagement. The loop is tight: an ad or slogan drops, the internet combusts, TikTok runs with it, press coverage floods in, and the stock surges or tanks based on pure vibes.
The meme cycle quite literally now dictates market cap. And brands know it.
August 2025 gave us the clearest proof yet: a denim pun, a blonde American icon, a problematic comedian, and a minimalist logo all became flashpoints in the culture. In a market where volatility is visibility, the question isn’t “Did people like it?” It’s “Did people look?” “Did people fight over it?”
American Eagle x Sydney Sweeney — “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” campaign
American Eagle dropped a cheeky, slightly corny campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney. The tagline: “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.”
Cue outrage.
Why? Because “Great Jeans” sounds like “Great Genes,” which some social media users decided was a thinly veiled white supremacist dog whistle. According to the mob logic, American Eagle was flirting with eugenics. The ad was interpreted as a wink to the far-right, an aesthetic nod to racial purity, and an intentional move to appeal to Trump voters.
Never mind that it was a denim pun.
Never mind that Sydney Sweeney is a Gen Z sex symbol with mass market appeal.
Never mind that we’re all just a little too online.
The mob projected its trauma, its media literacy, and its paranoia onto a campaign that, at worst, was blandly corporate. Lizzo dropped a line in a new song referencing it. Trump posted about it, saying “Sydney Sweeney has the HOTTEST ad out there” (lol). The discourse became a culture war battleground in under 36 hours.
But the deeper truth isn’t about what the ad said—it was what it didn’t say.
No virtue signal = moral failure
No performative allyship = secret enemy
No apology = fascist sympathies
People took to TikTok to declare they were “boycotting” the brand. This now-viral image of a plus-size, Black person in pink sweatpants flipping off the Sweeney billboard spread across TikTok, then spilled onto Instagram, Threads, and X. It became a kind of ritual act—an embodied, literal middle finger to whiteness, thinness, beauty standards, and whatever else Sydney Sweeney was standing in for that week. Another viral TikTok clip showed a young black girl walking into American Eagle before quickly turning around and saying “Oh right, I can’t shop there.”
Notably, and despite the backlash and boycott threats, American Eagle didn’t apologize. They didn’t pull the campaign. They didn’t grovel or “recommit to our values.” They posted a simple statement:
“It was always about the jeans.”
“Great jeans look good on everyone.”
Two years ago, they would’ve bent the knee after the first negative news cycle, which is another shift worth noting. But we’re not in the golden age of cancel culture anymore—we’re in the residual trauma economy that cancel culture left behind. A landscape full of automated outrage rituals and people who don’t even know why they’re mad.
Levi’s x Beyoncé — “Reiimagine Denim”
Same fabric. Different reception.
This one launched just days after the AE drama. Coincidence? Please.
MSM treated the Levi’s campaign like a masterstroke. A reclamation of Americana. A cultural moment. A queen in her power. Some even positioned it as a direct counter to the Sweeney campaign, as if Beyoncé had returned to the scene to reclaim denim for the oppressed.
On X, the conversation was a little more fractured. People pointed out that Beyoncé was styled with platinum blonde hair and soft-filtered skin. Many called it whitewashed. Some said she was “cosplaying Sydney Sweeney.” Others accused Levi’s of scrambling to reverse-engineer a woke denim moment to offset the AE backlash.
But here’s what I find most interesting: the same people who read the Sweeney ad as a hate crime… had no problem celebrating the Beyoncé one. The styling looked similar, the aesthetic was just as glossy, but the identity behind it was different. The Beyoncé campaign was harder to criticize without stepping on their own ideology.
To go after that ad would mean admitting that aesthetics don’t always signal moral virtue. That intention might matter more than surface. That maybe, just maybe, everyone’s reading too far into denim campaigns. And that’s not a pill the outrage economy wants to swallow.
There was no outrage.
No thinkpieces about whiteness. No trauma-posting about beauty standards. No accusations of aesthetic violence.
Except from one person: Piers Morgan. He posted the ad image with the caption:
"Very disappointed to see Beyoncé culturally appropriate Marilyn Monroe in her new Levi’s ad."
And the internet did what it does. It mocked him. Dionne Warwick replied, "Getting involved in women’s business again, I see…"
But the deeper takeaway here isn’t about Piers. It’s about why the mob didn’t activate when it came to an ad that was so similar to the American Eagle one that launched just days before.
Per usual, it’s not about what was said—it’s about who’s allowed to say it.
Gap x KATSEYE — “Better in Denim”
Gap dropped a high-gloss campaign with the K-pop girl group KATSEYE.
It racked up 20M views in 72 hours. By the time it reached virality (400M views, 8B impressions), Gap was everywhere.
And yet… their stock fell 10% on earnings news tied to tariffs.
The 90-second ad, set to Kelis’s 2003 hit “Milkshake”, featured KATSEYE dancing head-to-toe in denim. Instantly, social media erupted in praise for its color, energy, and celebration of individuality.
As reported in Newsweek and Parade, the campaign was quickly dubbed the “perfect antidote” to AE’s PR fiasco. One fan wrote, “This is how to do a jean ad.” Another threw shade back at AE with, “I like these genes better.”
Analysts noted that placing KATSEYE—a group with massive Gen Z fandom—on such a dynamic, nostalgic visual was a calculated pivot toward authenticity over controversy. One strategist said the ad “pulled ahead in the denim ad wars,” citing its viral choreography and inclusivity.
Rather than being reactionary, the ad felt like intentional timing. It dropped exactly when the internet was still processing AE’s pun-gate and the Beyoncé comparisons. Fans called it “striking while the iron is hot.”
Gap didn’t spark a culture war. But they hijacked the aftermath of one.
e.l.f. Cosmetics x Matt Rife — “Beauty Attorneys”
When e.l.f. Cosmetics cast Matt Rife—a comedian with a well-documented history of domestic violence jokes—as one half of their “beauty attorneys” ad (paired with drag icon Heidi N Closet), the internet didn’t just side-eye them. It unleashed a hostage exchange of moral outrage.
The Ad’s premise:
e.l.f. dropped a polished, sitcom-style spot parodying legal ads, with Rife and Heidi N Closet pleading your case for affordable beauty. On paper, it looked like cheeky Gen Z marketing. But beneath the gloss, Rife’s baggage was a ticking reputation bomb.
Backlash saturated immediately:
Beauty influencers and consumers lit up. NikkieTutorials (8.8M followers) posted: “aaaaaaandddd you lost me… Matt Rife out of ALL people?”
Others reminded the brand of Rife’s infamous 2023 domestic-violence joke.
What was the joke?
At the start of his 2023 Netflix special Natural Selection, Matt Rife opened with a dark, misogynistic bit about domestic violence:
He described a hostess with a black eye and joked, “I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye.”
Followed by, “I figure we start the show with domestic violence, the rest should be smooth sailing from here.”
Variety and Business of Fashion noted that this joke—and Rife’s handling of the backlash—made the e.l.f. campaign feel irresponsible and misaligned with their typical inclusive branding.
e.l.f. was “very surprised”:
The brand’s CMO, Kory Marchisotto, admitted the disconnect between their intention (humor and inclusivity) and how it hit the audience. She leaned into real-time marketing, citing Rife’s TikTok perfs—80% positive engagement, mostly young women.
One marketer labeled the campaign “rage bait”—spotting the math: angry clicks = free media. Rife’s audience demographics aligned with e.l.f.’s demo—but values didn’t.
e.l.f.’s response echoed inoffensive boilerplate:
“We’re listening… we missed the mark… this campaign closes today.”
But notice… the ad stayed live.
Influencers and survivors went public: “I will never spend another dollar with you,” wrote one survivor. Another user griped: “You didn’t have the budget for a comedian who doesn’t joke about abuse?”
Stock dipped 2–3%. Then stabilized.
Cracker Barrel — Logo Meltdown
Cracker Barrel, an Americana institution known for an “Old Timer” figure beside a barrel, quietly rolled out a minimalist redesign on August 19, aiming for sleek, Gen Z‑friendly vibes. The original mascot was gone. The décor inside restaurants had gone lighter and more modern. This wasn’t just a logo tweak—it was a $700 million remodeling plan in visual form.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t land.
Outrage we (apparently) all agreed on?
Conservatives cried out “woke takeover,” accusing the chain of erasing tradition.
Liberals complained the design was generic, sterile—devoid of the feel-good vibe the brand relied on.
Steak ’n Shake (yes, the competitor) even jumped in, mocking the change and hinting the money would’ve been better spent on biscuits than design.
The official Democrat account even memed it by using Free Speech Guy to say “We think the Cracker Barrel rebrand sucks too”
Cracker Barrel’s logo meltdown was less about design—and more about digital duel. When the brand ditched its beloved “Old Timer” emblem, it triggered not just nostalgia backlash, but full-spectrum cultural war. Trump’s public posturing on social media turned brand blunder into strategy. Cracker Barrel didn’t just reverse course—they leaned into the outrage playbook: provoke, wait, apologize, restore.
Within 12 hours of Trump’s post on Truth Social, Cracker Barrel announced the reversal.
Stock dropped 7–15% on rollout.
Rebounded 4–7% after they reversed the decision.
And just like that, nostalgia won. The Old Timer was back.
Outrage isn’t an accident anymore—it’s a mechanism.
What used to be PR flops are now culture war stress tests. If people are talking—even in disgust—it’s considered a win. And if you’re smart, you can even reverse your flop into a hero arc. Just ask Cracker Barrel.
This isn’t just marketing anymore. It’s memetic warfare with a corporate budget. Every campaign is bait. Every slogan a litmus test. Every aesthetic tweak a Rorschach for ideological projection.
The only real question now is: do brands shape the discourse, or does the discourse shape the brands?
What do you think?
What do I think?
Yes.
Great article. For someone who curates his inputs, I found it very informative and confirmed the soundness of my decision to get off short-form social media platforms and to quit doom scrolling through the newsfeeds in English. The first thing that comes to mind is a title of a Shakespearean play, Much Ado About Nothing. Frankly, I'm not part of the target market for these products, so I don't give a shit about how people react to the orchestrated provocations. However, what I do find troubling is how social media works to dumb down the public discourse. It's kind of creepy to learn about the President of the United States chirping in about how he thinks Sydney Sweeny is hot (wonder what his wife and daughters think), but then again the comment was coming from a guy who says he likes to grab women by their pussy, was found guilty in a civil court of sexual assault, and was best buddies with Epstein. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since the internet is the world's largest distributor of porn. Fake news, feigned outrage? What chances does an aspiring writer have to find an audience in this information ecosystem dominated by algorithms designed to maximize user engagement? Not much, but it can be done, so hang in there and keep publishing your texts even if only your mom and your best friend reads them.