She used Sydney’s rump for a trauma dump.
An ex New Jersey teacher-turned-lifestyle influencer is getting roasted online for turning Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad into a therapy session, with a post claiming she feels unattractive because of her skin color — and a repost of it, calling her a “professional victim,” went viral.
“For me, I can’t help but think about the 13-year-old brown girl who gets all of her denim at American Eagle, who already struggles to see her beauty and worth in a world that continues to value white, Eurocentric beauty standards,” said Payal Desai of Medford in an Instagram video on Tuesday.
Her clip was reposted on X on Wednesday by media personality Colin Rugg — with the caption, “The professional victims are relentless” — and it’s already racked up 10.6 million views and masses of criticism.
“If your self worth crumbles at the sight of Sydney Sweeney in jeans, I’ve got news for you: The problem isn’t whiteness. It’s you,” one X user wrote.
“The American Eagle ad triggered your childhood trauma? Because Sydney Sweeney is blonde and beautiful?” someone else asked.
“Girl, that’s not oppression, that’s insecurity, and you need to handle that in therapy, not social media. I’m a mixed Latina, and I think she looks absolutely stunning.”
“This was probably just a grift by her to get everyone to tell her she is pretty,” Rugg, who has 1.8 million X followers, added.
Desai, 39, whose parents are from India, grew up in Allentown, PA, according to NJ Advance Media.
In her reactionary post, which garnered 284,000 views on her Instagram page, @payalforstyle and over 88,000 on her TikTok handle, she spoke about her difficulty finding herself pretty in her “predominantly white community.”
“I really wasn’t gonna weigh in on this, but here we go. It is so difficult to grow up as a person of color, specifically a woman, and view yourself as beautiful in any sense of the word growing up in this country,” she began in the video to her 441,000 followers.
“I remember growing up in a predominantly white community wishing myself out of this body, out of this culture. Take my name if it meant that I could wake up blonde-haired and blue-eyed, never having to explain who I am or worry about being accepted. That is why this American Eagle ad with Sydney Sweeney is especially off-putting.”
This is not the first time Desai, a former eighth grade teacher who left her job to pursue full-time content creating, has gone viral.
In 2023, Desai amassed millions of views for her series on TikTok dubbed “No Dusty Sons,” where she teaches her two young boys lessons that will one day benefit their future partners.
Desai has disabled comments on her now-infamous Instagram post.
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