Are Sydney Sweeney's Boobs 'Anti-Woke'? A Bewildering And Surprisingly Widespread Right-wing Talking Point Explained

There has been one question at the forefront of the collective American mind as we barrel toward another presidential election that will surely have great consequences on the future of the country and perhaps the world:

Are Sydney Sweeney's boobs defeating wokeness?

Okay, maybe the question isn't the nation's most pressing question, but it has, somehow, become a viral topic of debate thanks to some, uh, let's say blisteringly hot takes and a wild op-ed in Canada's National Post. Here's how this bizarre discourse came to be.

Why Do People Think Sydney Sweeney's Boobs Are 'Anti-Woke'?

Sydney Sweeney, as many know, is a very popular actress whose star only seems to be rising after memorable turns on Euphoria and The White Lotus. This has led her to the usual celebrity press stops, including an appearance on Hot Ones and a turn as the host of Saturday Night Live.

She also, very noticeably, has sizable boobs. These are often a topic of conversation whenever Sweeney is brought up online. In fact, much of the Saturday Night Live episode was devoted to making jokes about this fact.

After the appearance, a conservative poster named @RichardHanania posted the clip of Sweeney closing the show, chest very prominently in-frame, and declared "Wokeness is dead."

Now, one tweet does not create a trend, but apparently it became a talking point for other big names in the conservative sphere. Ian Miles Cheong posted the same video and a video of a carpenter installing a ceiling, claiming that because both videos were popular on social media, "wokeness" was dying.

Then, Amy Hamm of Canada's National Post wrote an op-ed piece outlining the argument that Sweeney is an affront to wokeness. The piece argues that the "woke" world wants to insist that everyone is beautiful and therefore no one can be truly "beautiful," but Sweeney is a conventionally attractive blonde woman who has no issue wearing revealing clothing on television, and therefore pre-"woke" values are returning to America.

That may sound confusing, but it's basically what she's getting at in this paragraph:

We’ve spent years being chastised for desiring or admiring beauty — because beauty is rare and exclusionary, and to exclude is to hate — or so we’ve been scolded to accept by today’s diversity, equity, and inclusion fanatics. We aren’t supposed to admire Sweeney’s beauty; but we’ve done it anyways.

So, Are Sydney Sweeney's Boobs Really "Anti-Woke"?

As one might imagine, there was quite a bit of confusion over this new line of discourse entering the public sphere. Woke was originally intended to mean a greater understanding of social issues and inequalities, but has been adopted by right-wing pundits to be a catch-all term for basically anything they dislike.

How a nice pair of boobs connects to "wokeness" stumped some on social media, but a previous celebration of the so-called "death of woke" may provide insight into this new discourse.

In October of 2023, the same crowd celebrated the news that Victoria's Secret was supposedly bringing back 'sexiness'. This was seen as a victory against recent efforts by Victoria's Secret to showcase a more diverse set of women's bodies than the typical "Angel"-style model.

The headlines didn't quite get the story right, as post-pandemic, Victoria's Secret has been contending with new underwear brands that have cornered the more "normal underwear" market over lingerie and those have been eating into the brand's profits. Thus, it seemed the brand was shifting back to what made it popular in the first place.

While there was nuance to the idea that Victoria's Secret was "ditching feminism" for "sexiness," the tenor of the celebration seemed to make the ideology clear: diversity of women's bodies is considered "woke" and conventionally hot women are "not woke." Thus, the current Sydney Sweeney craze seems to be proof positive to culture warriors on the right that America likes "Hot Women," and therefore wokeness is dying.

Many on the left have pointed out that supposed "wokeness" never had anything to do with disliking hot women. In fact, giving space for women to own their sexuality has long been a tenet of feminism. This particularly contrasts with recent trad trends among the right that have actively pushed for women to dress more modestly. The recent right-wing DignifAI trend, for example, used AI to actively put more clothes on women so that they weren't showing off their cleavage or other assets.

It seems the anti-woke crowd is in the midst of hashing out a set of rules for who can show cleavage and in what context, but one over-arching reaction to this recent discourse was exhaustion that it was even a topic. Folks of all stripes can appreciate a nice chest, and brother, that's a beat we can all dance to.

For the full history of Sydney Sweeney's anti-woke boobs, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.