How the Right-Wing Outrage Machine Invents Liberal Fury — and Sells It Back to You

The manufactured controversy over Sydney Sweeney is a textbook example of how right-wing operatives get liberals to take the bait.

Last week, millions of Americans were told that liberals were furious about a pair of jeans.

The supposed scandal involved actress Sydney Sweeney’s ad for American Eagle denim jeans, which used the slogan: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”

According to right-wing commentators, liberals perceived this ad as more than just a cheeky pun — they heard it as a reference to fascist eugenics.

Conservative influencers claimed that “the left” was having a melt down, saying they believed the ad was glorifying white supremacy and pushing a racist agenda. In less than 72 hours, a manufactured controversy that started with YouTube videos and Twitter/X posts exploded into a national (actually, international) news story that was presented as yet another example of “woke insanity.” The National Republican Congressional Committee even managed to spin the incident into a story about a supposed leak of a “top-secret Democratic memo” revealing Democrats’ 2026 strategy, which, among other things, apparently aims to ban ads that feature Sweeney.

Except … none of it was real.

There was no viral liberal backlash. No trending or widespread outrage. No organized boycott. At least, not until after right-wing media invented the controversy — and then baited liberals into making it real.

The Outrage Loop: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The Sydney Sweeney saga wasn’t a one-off incident. It followed a tested and refined formula — one that blends narrative warfare, social media algorithms, and good old-fashioned emotional manipulation.

Here’s how the cycle works:

1. Invent the outrage.

Pick a neutral or mildly provocative event — a celebrity ad, a movie casting, a corporate diversity statement — and frame it as offensive to “the left.” The offense doesn’t have to exist; it just has to sound plausible enough to trigger tribal reflexes.

In this case, “great jeans” was spun into a hidden fascist message. Never mind that no prominent liberal politician or activist had actually made this claim — the seed was planted, and the outrage cycle began.

2. Flood the zone.

The invented narrative gets blasted out by numerous conservative influencers, media outlets, and meme pages. This blitz creates the illusion that “everyone” is talking about it.

Social media algorithms reward this repetition, pushing the “controversy” into trending feeds and recommended videos.

3. Bait the reaction.

By tying the fake offense to a hot-button topic — race, gender, patriotism, etc — right-wing operatives all but guarantee that at least some liberals will respond. The loudest, most indignant replies are then screenshot and recirculated as proof.

When a handful of left-leaning Twitter users mocked the ridiculousness of the claim, right-wing commentators seized on those posts as “evidence” that liberals really were outraged all along.

4. Close the loop.

The right-wing media ecosystem then covers the liberal pushback as confirmation: See? They really do melt down over everything.

The narrative — that liberals are humorless, hypersensitive, and obsessed with identity politics — is reinforced, all based on a controversy that didn’t exist in the first place.

Hacking the Algorithms — and Your Brain

This strategy works because it hits two systems at once:

• The algorithmic brain of the internet.

• The emotional brain of the audience.

Social media platforms prioritize content that sparks strong emotional reactions — outrage, fear, disgust. By flooding the feed with “liberals are mad” posts, the outrage machine exploits recommendation systems that amplify whatever keeps people engaged and angry.

Your brain is wired to pay attention to perceived threats. Even if the threat is absurd (“Liberals want to cancel jeans”; “Democrats want to ban Sydney Sweeney ads”), it still hijacks your attention — and your scrolling habits. The more you see it, the more “real” it feels.

And by tying the fake controversy to existing cultural battlefields like white supremacy, right-wing operatives tap into deep identity triggers, making people defend their side as if it were under attack.

Using something as serious as white supremacy as the hook works because it’s incendiary. It guarantees a heated emotional response.

Right-wing operatives don’t actually need liberals to have said anything. Merely suggesting that “the left” believes something — even falsely — forces liberals into a defensive position.

Defensiveness is the trap here. It keeps the story alive and pushes liberals into exactly the posture that the right wants: reactionary, overly-serious, and easy to caricature.

If this feels familiar, it’s because the same outrage loop has been used effectively for countless other topics, including:

• Mr. Potato Head supposedly being “canceled.”

• Dr. Seuss books allegedly banned by “the woke mob.”

• The Starbucks holiday cup that “declared war on Christmas.”

In every one of those cases, the initial “outrage” was either fabricated or so tiny that it was meaningless — until right-wing media magnified it into a national story.

How to Spot a Manufactured Outrage Cycle

The Sydney Sweeney incident is a textbook example of this phenomenon. And yet, many on the left still fell for it.

If you want to avoid becoming a pawn in the outrage economy, here are some questions to ask yourself the next time you see something that looks like this:

1. Where’s the original outrage? Can you find actual posts or protests made by liberals, or only people claiming it exists?

2. Who benefits? Is the coverage feeding clicks, ad revenue, or a political narrative?

3. Is this recycled? Does it mirror past “outrages” about wokeness, cancel culture, or political correctness?

4. Does it feel too perfect? If it neatly confirms every stereotype about a political opponent, be suspicious.

The Sydney Sweeney “great jeans” saga wasn’t about denim, slogans, or even race. It was about control — control over what you see, how you feel, and which stories dominate your mental bandwidth.

As long as people fall for manufactured outrage cycles, the outrage machine will keep on spinning. And with each new cycle, the feedback loop tightens, making it harder to tell what’s real and what’s just another baited hook trying to get you to bite.

The next time you’re told that “the other side” is melting down, don’t just accept the claim as true. Check the source. Look for the proof. If the meltdown only exists in narrative form, then you’ve almost certainly just found another product of the outrage factory. When that happens, the only winning move is not to play the game at all.