A Wren Says

After now months of silence, Sydney Sweeney has finally come out to say she is against hate. If you remember, her American Eagle ads faced backlash. The tagline, “Sydney Sweeney has great genes,” was considered by many to be too close to eugenicist propaganda. The juxtaposition of her blonde hair and blue eyes was too similar to a certain historical take, shall I say. She was caught in the center of a political divide and said nothing. She didn’t choose a side. She didn’t try to clarify her position. She just wanted to let people make up their own minds, and they did.

Now Sweeney has come out and taken a stance, but is too late. The damage had already been done. The assumptions had already been made, and now it will be an uphill battle to change people’s minds. I don’t claim to be a crisis PR expert, but I imagine it’s a lot easier to put out a fire in the beginning rather than waiting for it to ravage your entire house.

It can be tricky. How do you respond when there are no good answers? What do you say when no matter what you’ll anger someone? And how do you react to public outrage when the trend cycle moves so quick it may be over before you know it? But just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

I imagine if she could see what was going to happen, Sydney Sweeney would have tried to respond. She would have made the difficult choice to speak up for herself. If she knew then what she knows now, she would have chosen differently. But unfortunately, she can’t go back in time. And neither can we. And because we can’t time travel, we have to take moments like this one and learn the lessons.

Sometimes, as scary as it is you have to choose. In a PR nightmare like this, what would you choose to do? Staying silent is a option, but it’s not your only one.