Doja Cat is adding fuel to the denim debate with a sharp and hilarious TikTok that aims for American Eagle’s recent campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney. The Grammy winner flipped the script on the ad, poking fun at its controversial wordplay by mimicking Sweeney’s delivery in a viral spoof that quickly ran wild across socials.
Check out the short clip below, where Doja mimics the actress’s tone while twisting the dialogue into parody. “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color,” she recites with a playful smirk. “My jeans are blew.”
The video, posted on Tuesday, July 29, garnered over 18 million views by the next morning, sparking a frenzy on the Gram and TikTok feeds with reactions ranging from laughter to deeper reflection on the ad’s messaging.
Get this, the original American Eagle spot features Sweeney modeling denim while delivering the same lines, closing with a voiceover stating, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” The play on the words genes and jeans has stirred backlash online, with some viewers calling it a tone-deaf campaign with unsettling undertones.
Critics across socials have pointed out that linking Sweeney’s blue-eyed, blonde image with the phrase “great genes” is a thinly veiled nod to eugenic ideals. “Praising Sydney Sweeney for her great jeans/genes in the context of her white, blonde hair, blue-eyed appearance, it is one of the loudest and most obvious racialized dog whistles we’ve seen and heard in a while,” one TikTok user said.
While Doja Cat’s parody was packed with humor, it also added fuel to the ongoing conversation about representation, privilege, and coded messaging in brand campaigns. The joke landed but so did the critique.