Sydney Sweeney, the actress best known for her role in the HBO drama series Euphoria, hosted Saturday Night Live (SNL) over the weekend and inadvertently became a culture war focal point after conservatives claimed her attire “defeated wokeness.”
The back-and-forth began after the formerly anonymous white supremacist author Richard Hanania appeared to insinuate that a low-cut top worn by Sweeney at the end of the show signified a rebuke of progressive ideology.
“Wokeness is dead,” Hanania wrote.
Others right-leaning user appeared to agree and voiced their opinions in Hanania’s replies.
“Boobs are back. Nice!” one user said.
“Blue haired pronoun people in full panic mode,” another added.
But progressives on the platform quickly shot back by arguing that conservatives were being contradictory.
“Conservatives keep trying to change the game here, ok? Libs never said women can’t show cleavage,” Substack writer Ben Dreyfuss said. “We are the people who are supportive of women owning their own sexuality! Ok? We invented that.”
Many left-leaning users also questioned how anyone could tie Sweeney’s mere existence to modern political discourse.
“The brains on the right are just absolutely charbroiled beyond repair,” another X user said. “How do u see a nice rack and your mind immediately goes to how can i make this political.”
Yet conservatives countered by arguing that progressives were the ones moving the goalposts, citing attempts to desexualize video games and sporting events.
“Y’all explicitly said that the male gaze is toxic,” one user said. “Don’t run from ur ideology. Come back here and face up to it.”
Outside the hyper-political debate, most users simply appeared to marvel at the fact that such a topic was even being discussed to begin with.
“Just googled woke and the definition is ‘alert to injustice in society.’ Not sure how that relates to Sydney Sweeney and her rack at all,” one user said.
Nevertheless, remarks relating Sweeney’s body to anti-wokeness have continued unabated.
Sweeney’s SNL performance as well as arguments over politics led the actress’ name to become a top trending topic on social media
