I think it’s also an indictment of the whole mass media marketing industry. Playing cute with deadly serious matters like the threat fascism and white supremacy poses today is horrifically unethical. Those marketing guys who pitched this ad 100% knew what they were doing. Not necessarily to win over the eugenics friendly demos, but to draw attention to the ad so we could all start talking about the brand. The least we should do in response is to call those guys out and to vote with our wallets by boycotting that brand
Some readers thought I was too harsh in condemning the “eugenics” assumption around the ad. Even though I agree this was mostly a Bannonite trolling of the left, there actually are some important historical and societal issues, which I’ll put into a full post a bit later. It will involve names that may be unfamiliar: Davenport and Lysenko.
Mike, I don't mean this as a refutation of the general point about finite attention spans and how partisans and ideologues all too often blow minor controversies out of proportion and use maximalist terminology in doing so and distract from more important issues, because I agree with that, but in this particular case this reads to me as "you should overlook the fact that this administration has openly stated they plan to do eugenics and that companies are now signalling their support for it".
EDIT: I would also note that this incident once again shows the hypocrisy of conservatives whenever they tell celebrities who support vaguely left-wing policies to shut up about politics (look at the demonisation of Colin Kaepernick), because they adore and embrace any celebrity (Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and now Sydney Sweeney, among others) who espouses support for whatever conservatism happens to look like at that time.
Eh, I mean...the notion that blonde and blue-eyed is "good genes" is not something you really hear outside of eugenics or eugenics-adjacent contexts, right? Nazis loved Taylor Swift like 10 years ago because she had pale white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. I'd venture to say that 90+% of the time someone hears about blond/blue -> "good genes" is history class learning about nazi conception of race hierarchy?
All of this is to say that it may be a "distraction," as Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries would say, and it may not be worth focusing on given the limits of human attention, as you say here, but it's hardly "ridiculous."
NO! Please do not even give any credit to the foolishness that this is "Nazi propaganda" or "eugenics." That's exactly the kind of attention Mike is talking about. It's just an ad.
Saying the words “good genes” does not equate to supporting eugenics. Genes exist and they do code for traits. Some people (like me) are nearsighted. Some people have genes that code for high cancer risk. Some people (not me) inherit genes for great athletic ability. Getting all bent out of shape over a silly video ad is exactly what the Right craves. Let’s keep our eye on the ball: defeating MAGA over the things they actually do.
I'll ask you nicely one more time to stop telling me to STFU. If my comments on an obscure philosophy/politics blog are that influential, I'm looking forward to a lot of changes in society. Again, stop telling me to shut up.
Saying that someone who has blonde hair and blue eyes has "good genes" is not something you really hear outside of eugenics or eugenics adjacent spaces, is it? That's the substantive point I made, and your response is to explain what genes are, which is infantilizing but irrelevant.
Mike is SO right here! I never heard of this person until someone cooked up this ridiculous "controversy" about her jeans ad. Was it really a "progressive activist" who started it? Who? They were already talking about it on the NBC evening news, where most stories consume about 20 seconds. So news producers have decided it's MORE important than 20+ continuing abominations by Trump and the TROGs (tech right oligarchs).
If they are going to talk about it, they should identify the person who initiated it; if they cannot, it should NOT be in the news, because it could be a plant.
But even if it's not a right-wing plant, the "eugenics" outrages plays right into the hands of MAGA - just when it looks like some of Trump's base is starting to have doubts, due to the Epstein scandal, a tiny number of people on the left hand him a Christmas-in-August gift to get them all aroused.
I have to say this Sydney Sweeney thing actually sends chills down my spine. I have learned a lot since Trump took office this time that I didn't know before. I wasn't really into understanding the government honestly- I took it for granted that it had its issues but it just worked. As I learned more and started to question "why do they keep talking about trans kids and these random things?? I was frustrated because Project 2025 was clearly in full force from the get go this time around. A friend with a trans daughter schooled me and humbled me in a good way. Sent me digging and that is when I realized Fascist regimes use "morals" to control the masses. A simplistic answer but I didn't really understand how all of this connected. Ironically I am a Christian but have been furious at the Christian Nationalism/support of Trump/power grab. I didn't know it was so derivative. :( It isn't new. Just new to me sadly. Doing what I can now to fight back and I hope it isn't too late.
I have a horrid suspicion (from firsthand experience being raised as one sort of Christian in the U.S., and from countless observations since reaching adulthood) that the "the system takes care of stuff eventually, maybe slowly maybe clumsily but inevitably" — the assumption I too made, until all too recently, that rational, civic-minded institutional fixtures and folks were keeping it all afloat — has a very insidious overlap with the Christian strain of authoritarianism that leans heavily on notions like "God does _____ so we don't have to" or "everything happens according to His plan" or "this is a Christian nation" ...
Honestly, Chris Hedges gave me more than enough wake-up call with "Death of the Liberal Class". But at the time all I could think was "oh that's so depressing! let's go read something else" ... And ignored the alarms for another decade or so, wasting most of my energy during Trump 1.0 on weary contempt and "outrage fatigue" rather than emphasizing & defending what is worth saving or shouting. It was only within the last couple of years that I finally stopped having blind "faith" in constitutional checks & balances, because they can only rely on sufficient participants acting in *good faith* - i.e. not being ideologues, powermongers and culture-warrior cut-outs.
Normally I wouldn’t have given this ad a second thought. The way it blew up blew me away and stretched my ability to comprehend pretty much lives out Mike’s take on the real issue.
Psychological warfare, influence and mind control, is sophisticated, effective and not widely understood. IMO, this post plays into the deceit by getting lost in the weeds of an incident without educating the reader on understanding the scope of the strategy and ways of effectively countering the tactics.
“flood the zone with shit” speaks volumes to the status of many things in the world today, but especially in the US.
▶︎ The current Trump administration and the GOP take first prize for serving the American public a 10-course shit dinner. From our deranged and vulgar excrement of a president to his absurdly incompetent political appointees, we can raise the "embarrassed to be an American flag" high on the flagpole. Think of Trump et al as doing their very best to destroy our great experiment (DOGE). When you do that, just about everything makes a heck of a lot more sense.
▶︎ What we have in the Supreme Court also fits the bill of a shitstorm. Perhaps, if the Democrats ever obtain control of both the House and Senate and the Presidency, we will change the lifetime appointment of Supreme Court Justices and impose some rules of ethics that must be followed. Right now, SCOTUS is a shitshow.
▶︎ The mainstream media is, for the most part, a sad commentary on reporting and having enough balls to tell what is clearly evident. All these years, and just recently, we are seeing some testicular fortitude with some newscasters.
▶︎ Our so-called Democratic allies just passively allow Putin to get away with his attempts at genocide, and the same with Netanyahu, along with others in this world of tyrants who destroy lives as if they were swatting a fly. We call ourselves civilized, and that is a flood zone of feces. You would think, by now, with the combined clout of many nations, we could evolve as sentient beings, so-called Homo sapiens. Instead, we must regard ourselves as Homo fecalis. We have ignored many fundamental truths about life, such as "don't shit where you eat," "How you make your bed is how well you sleep in it," and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
To paraphrase George Orwell, "Yet we always seem to be walking a tightrope over a cesspool."
Yes, America is no longer about being number 1; America has figuratively become "number 2."
The Attention Wars article is spot on. Not only did I read it twice, sent it to several people, sat on the couch and watched my husband's face as he read it but I also printed it so that I could read it again...and again. I will probably preach it to anyone who will listen to me now that I have the words to explain it. Thank you for that. Yes the Sweeney debacle perfectly epitomized The Attention Wars but sadly 85% of the daily news and 99% of social media does too.
I think it’s also an indictment of the whole mass media marketing industry. Playing cute with deadly serious matters like the threat fascism and white supremacy poses today is horrifically unethical. Those marketing guys who pitched this ad 100% knew what they were doing. Not necessarily to win over the eugenics friendly demos, but to draw attention to the ad so we could all start talking about the brand. The least we should do in response is to call those guys out and to vote with our wallets by boycotting that brand
I’ve seen the ad a few times already but I couldn’t tell you the brand so it didn’t even work! At least not on me!
Some readers thought I was too harsh in condemning the “eugenics” assumption around the ad. Even though I agree this was mostly a Bannonite trolling of the left, there actually are some important historical and societal issues, which I’ll put into a full post a bit later. It will involve names that may be unfamiliar: Davenport and Lysenko.
Mike, I don't mean this as a refutation of the general point about finite attention spans and how partisans and ideologues all too often blow minor controversies out of proportion and use maximalist terminology in doing so and distract from more important issues, because I agree with that, but in this particular case this reads to me as "you should overlook the fact that this administration has openly stated they plan to do eugenics and that companies are now signalling their support for it".
EDIT: I would also note that this incident once again shows the hypocrisy of conservatives whenever they tell celebrities who support vaguely left-wing policies to shut up about politics (look at the demonisation of Colin Kaepernick), because they adore and embrace any celebrity (Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and now Sydney Sweeney, among others) who espouses support for whatever conservatism happens to look like at that time.
Eh, I mean...the notion that blonde and blue-eyed is "good genes" is not something you really hear outside of eugenics or eugenics-adjacent contexts, right? Nazis loved Taylor Swift like 10 years ago because she had pale white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. I'd venture to say that 90+% of the time someone hears about blond/blue -> "good genes" is history class learning about nazi conception of race hierarchy?
All of this is to say that it may be a "distraction," as Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries would say, and it may not be worth focusing on given the limits of human attention, as you say here, but it's hardly "ridiculous."
NO! Please do not even give any credit to the foolishness that this is "Nazi propaganda" or "eugenics." That's exactly the kind of attention Mike is talking about. It's just an ad.
Instead of telling me to STFU, which I don't appreciate, how about substantively responding to my argument?
Saying the words “good genes” does not equate to supporting eugenics. Genes exist and they do code for traits. Some people (like me) are nearsighted. Some people have genes that code for high cancer risk. Some people (not me) inherit genes for great athletic ability. Getting all bent out of shape over a silly video ad is exactly what the Right craves. Let’s keep our eye on the ball: defeating MAGA over the things they actually do.
I'll ask you nicely one more time to stop telling me to STFU. If my comments on an obscure philosophy/politics blog are that influential, I'm looking forward to a lot of changes in society. Again, stop telling me to shut up.
Saying that someone who has blonde hair and blue eyes has "good genes" is not something you really hear outside of eugenics or eugenics adjacent spaces, is it? That's the substantive point I made, and your response is to explain what genes are, which is infantilizing but irrelevant.
You nailed it with this.
Mike is SO right here! I never heard of this person until someone cooked up this ridiculous "controversy" about her jeans ad. Was it really a "progressive activist" who started it? Who? They were already talking about it on the NBC evening news, where most stories consume about 20 seconds. So news producers have decided it's MORE important than 20+ continuing abominations by Trump and the TROGs (tech right oligarchs).
If they are going to talk about it, they should identify the person who initiated it; if they cannot, it should NOT be in the news, because it could be a plant.
But even if it's not a right-wing plant, the "eugenics" outrages plays right into the hands of MAGA - just when it looks like some of Trump's base is starting to have doubts, due to the Epstein scandal, a tiny number of people on the left hand him a Christmas-in-August gift to get them all aroused.
I have to say this Sydney Sweeney thing actually sends chills down my spine. I have learned a lot since Trump took office this time that I didn't know before. I wasn't really into understanding the government honestly- I took it for granted that it had its issues but it just worked. As I learned more and started to question "why do they keep talking about trans kids and these random things?? I was frustrated because Project 2025 was clearly in full force from the get go this time around. A friend with a trans daughter schooled me and humbled me in a good way. Sent me digging and that is when I realized Fascist regimes use "morals" to control the masses. A simplistic answer but I didn't really understand how all of this connected. Ironically I am a Christian but have been furious at the Christian Nationalism/support of Trump/power grab. I didn't know it was so derivative. :( It isn't new. Just new to me sadly. Doing what I can now to fight back and I hope it isn't too late.
I have a horrid suspicion (from firsthand experience being raised as one sort of Christian in the U.S., and from countless observations since reaching adulthood) that the "the system takes care of stuff eventually, maybe slowly maybe clumsily but inevitably" — the assumption I too made, until all too recently, that rational, civic-minded institutional fixtures and folks were keeping it all afloat — has a very insidious overlap with the Christian strain of authoritarianism that leans heavily on notions like "God does _____ so we don't have to" or "everything happens according to His plan" or "this is a Christian nation" ...
Honestly, Chris Hedges gave me more than enough wake-up call with "Death of the Liberal Class". But at the time all I could think was "oh that's so depressing! let's go read something else" ... And ignored the alarms for another decade or so, wasting most of my energy during Trump 1.0 on weary contempt and "outrage fatigue" rather than emphasizing & defending what is worth saving or shouting. It was only within the last couple of years that I finally stopped having blind "faith" in constitutional checks & balances, because they can only rely on sufficient participants acting in *good faith* - i.e. not being ideologues, powermongers and culture-warrior cut-outs.
Don’t know that book so just bought it. I just don’t know how to fight back. It’s very overwhelming
There’s a sucker born every minute and they all have the right to vote.
Normally I wouldn’t have given this ad a second thought. The way it blew up blew me away and stretched my ability to comprehend pretty much lives out Mike’s take on the real issue.
best explanation I've seen in while of what's ennervating our response to the chaos
A registered republican though….. I kind of see the film Immaculate differently now lol
Eugenics
Sidney Sweeney on Sydney Sweeney.
https://www.americascoach.com/p/sydney-sweeney-american-eagle-parody.
Psychological warfare, influence and mind control, is sophisticated, effective and not widely understood. IMO, this post plays into the deceit by getting lost in the weeds of an incident without educating the reader on understanding the scope of the strategy and ways of effectively countering the tactics.
“flood the zone with shit” speaks volumes to the status of many things in the world today, but especially in the US.
▶︎ The current Trump administration and the GOP take first prize for serving the American public a 10-course shit dinner. From our deranged and vulgar excrement of a president to his absurdly incompetent political appointees, we can raise the "embarrassed to be an American flag" high on the flagpole. Think of Trump et al as doing their very best to destroy our great experiment (DOGE). When you do that, just about everything makes a heck of a lot more sense.
▶︎ What we have in the Supreme Court also fits the bill of a shitstorm. Perhaps, if the Democrats ever obtain control of both the House and Senate and the Presidency, we will change the lifetime appointment of Supreme Court Justices and impose some rules of ethics that must be followed. Right now, SCOTUS is a shitshow.
▶︎ The mainstream media is, for the most part, a sad commentary on reporting and having enough balls to tell what is clearly evident. All these years, and just recently, we are seeing some testicular fortitude with some newscasters.
▶︎ Our so-called Democratic allies just passively allow Putin to get away with his attempts at genocide, and the same with Netanyahu, along with others in this world of tyrants who destroy lives as if they were swatting a fly. We call ourselves civilized, and that is a flood zone of feces. You would think, by now, with the combined clout of many nations, we could evolve as sentient beings, so-called Homo sapiens. Instead, we must regard ourselves as Homo fecalis. We have ignored many fundamental truths about life, such as "don't shit where you eat," "How you make your bed is how well you sleep in it," and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
To paraphrase George Orwell, "Yet we always seem to be walking a tightrope over a cesspool."
Yes, America is no longer about being number 1; America has figuratively become "number 2."
Why are we drooling over Ms. Sydney Sweeney? ...
.
.
To a BEAUTY That BLINDS
.
Her looks transcend the barrier called fair
His heart and will to resist her she binds
Thinking naught but of her smile he pines
For the release of her bouncy blonde hair
Her leaving his small realm he could not bear
Like the silky long curls her finger winds
He's limp, all for that beauty that blinds
From all else yet at her helpless he'd stare.
.
While seeing the shallows though not the signs
Showing more than a pretty visual layer
Whether the twain may too meet with their minds,
Hearts will share their most secrets should they dare
Feelings far further than vague dating lines
To know eternity their souls shall share.
.
.
[And I don’t plan on quitting my day job to become a master poet.]
The Attention Wars article is spot on. Not only did I read it twice, sent it to several people, sat on the couch and watched my husband's face as he read it but I also printed it so that I could read it again...and again. I will probably preach it to anyone who will listen to me now that I have the words to explain it. Thank you for that. Yes the Sweeney debacle perfectly epitomized The Attention Wars but sadly 85% of the daily news and 99% of social media does too.