On Media Literacy: Who’s Speaking, and Why Are We Listening?
What do Sydney Sweeney, Nara Smith and mummy bloggers all have in common; and why might it not be as innocuous as it seems? TOMES writer, Benedetta explains.
The phrase ‘media literate’ appears on nearly every CV for roles involving social media or content creation. But to be truly media literate today means much more than understanding trends or familiarising yourself with memes and pop culture. Media literacy is one of the greatest gifts that consumers of content can give themselves: the ability to dissect what we’re seeing, to unravel the connecting threads, and to pull at them until it becomes apparent whose hands are holding, owning, and — more often than not — monetising them.
Media literacy is a muscle that requires deliberate exercise. It’s not necessarily easy, and it shouldn’t be. It calls for slowing down our ravenous consumption and postponing the quick hits of dopamine that short-term reward systems offer. The goal is to spark a dialogue with those who are talking at us. To ask: What are they actually saying? And perhaps more importantly: Who said it before them?
In a time when messages arrive in endless streams — from adverts, influencers, and political campaigns — media literacy is not optional. It is essential. As two recent examples show, in fact, even a seemingly harmless fashion ad or a wholesome cooking video can carry deeper, more troubling subtexts.
In early 2025, American Eagle released a campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney, who says on camera, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair, personality, and even eye colour. My jeans are blue.” The ad went viral, but not for the reasons the brand hoped. Many saw it as a racially charged pun, particularly considering that Sweeney happens to be a white, blonde, blue-eyed beauty. Critics argued it echoed historical ideas of ‘good genes’, a concept with roots in eugenics. American Eagle defended the campaign as a benign pun about jeans, and nothing but jeans. And this is why context matters.
This controversy, in fact, is unfolding in a nation grappling with immigration enforcement, including detention and deportations to countries where immigrants (many of whom have no prior records) could be tortured. The United States also has a fraught history of eugenics. In the 1930s, the American Eugenics Society supported sterilisation programmes targeting immigrants, low-income individuals, and minority communities, while promoting reproductive rights for those with ‘desirable’ traits. The ones with the ‘good genes’ — the blue genes — were encouraged to reproduce and pass them on.
Not a surprise then that Trump would defend and endorse the campaign. “The hottest ad out there,” he tweeted. Not a surprise also that Sweeney recently turned out to be a registered Republican. None of this is surprising, and definitely none of this is just about a pair of blue jeans, or a celebrity.
“American Eagle defended the campaign as a benign pun about jeans, and nothing but jeans. And this is why context matters.”
Speaking of American conservatism and the need for media literacy, a special mention should go to Nara Smith: the soft-spoken influencer and model who rose to fame by making delicious homemade meals for her children and husband (Mormon model Lucky Smith), amassing millions of TikTok views. At first, I found her calculated curation almost admirable. Clearly a savvy and empowered business woman, clearly not acting alone but supported by a team who would help her produce each immaculately packaged piece of content — and surely no one actually believes she does it all herself? Caring for the children, even making toothpaste from scratch, modelling, travelling the world?
At first glance, it all might appear harmless enough. A young couple in love. Beautiful and seemingly thriving in their quiet-luxury lifestyle. Nara, cooking in designer gowns without a single drip or stain. Unblemished by messiness. The whole thing is intoxicatingly appealing. An overdose of attractiveness. This aesthetic, carefully curated, packages domesticity as aspirational and achievable: if you buy the right products, maintain the right attitude, and work hard enough. Critics note it aligns with ‘tradwife’ ideals: women self-sacrificing and elegant while doing unpaid labour. When Nara and Lucky were outed as Trump endorsers, some were shocked, but many were not.
Even without that piece, the Nara Smith case remains a problematic puzzle. Her quiet luxury aesthetic merges with a brand of conservatism that markets solutions to emotional or practical insecurity. As Stacy Lee Kong observes, “What Smith is presenting as beautiful expressions of her love for her family [...] is actually labour, and that reducing it simply to ‘care’ is a deeply conservative and capitalist strategy.” Smith is selling a specific, and subtle, idea of motherhood and femininity, which intentionally weeds out the ugly and the messy. And, again, context matters. Considering the current climate — for instance the prohibitive cost of childcare and the reproductive rights discourse in the US — the message within the aesthetic reveals itself as a deeply troubling one. And it’s hardly new too.
Long before Nara, there were the mommy bloggers, with brands quick to discern and capitalise on their influence. As Kong notes, Smith’s style is one of the latest iterations: “a model of performative mothering that’s more about aesthetic than anything else.” Interestingly, some of the earliest and most influential mummy bloggers were also Mormons. This is no coincidence, as Mormonism not only sees motherhood as ‘a woman’s highest calling’, but also encourages women and young girls to stay on the influencing path, gently promoting that lifestyle through social media.
Bottom line is: media does not exist in a vacuum.
True media literacy requires probing beyond the glossy packaging — whether that’s quiet luxury or a seemingly innocuous ad about jeans — to interrogate the power structures, motivations, and ideologies beneath. Take notes, question language, and situate media within its broader socio-political context. Fashion and lifestyle content often captivate with dream-making, but we retain the power to decipher marketing, recognise patterns, and resist passive consumption. We have agency over our feelings: recognising them, naming them, and taking note.
credits
words — benedetta mancusi
design — gloria ukoh