American Eagle Claims #AerieMan Underwear Ad Was A ‘Parody’ Of Women’s Body Positive Ad, Models Were Tricked

The clothing brand American Eagle has infuriated the internet this month by releasing a convincing ad for men’s underwear featuring male models of all shapes and sizes. It appeared to be promoting the #AerieMan underwear brand using the tagline, “The real you is sexy.” While many people were pleased with the body positive message of this commercial at first, American Eagle recently revealed that the entire ad campaign was just an April Fools’ joke and the men’s Aerie brand underwear isn’t even a real product.

According to ABC News, American Eagle released a statement on April 1 claiming that the #AerieMan commercials were meant as a parody of their own women’s #AerieReal campaign. However, American Eagle does make men’s underwear and claims the #AerieMan ads were definitely meant to promote the American Eagle brand to men regardless of the fake underwear line.

They wrote, “We know our male customers respond to humor.”

American Eagle also launched the fake #AerieMan commercials as part of an initiative to stop retouching their male models. So, while promoting male body positivity was only a parody, the company still wants to use images of “real” men in their ads.

Adweek senior editor Emma Bazilian told ABC News, “The thing that people got upset about was that about a week after this campaign had launched with these images of body positive men wearing different kinds of underwear, American Eagle came out and said it was a joke that was meant to promote the fact that they were now going to stop retouching male models.”

With the Aerie line of women’s underwear being so popular and the #AerieMan ads appearing so sincere, almost nobody got the joke, including the male customers who “respond to humor.” Many people took to the internet to criticize American Eagle for making light of men’s body image issues.

Male???? body???? positivity???? is???? not???? a???? joke. #AerieMAN

— D.J. Kirkland (@OhHeyDJ) April 1, 2016

“Omg you know what would be funny? Making a fake campaign to mock body positivity for men! Super *~edgy~*!”

— Steph (@WriteOnSteph) April 1, 2016

One Twitter user accused American Eagle of reinforcing the idea that men do not struggle with body image.

“Male body acceptance is no laughing matter, especially because the issue already has little visibility. Your ‘joke’ diluted it further.”

But it gets worse. According to BuzzFeed, even the male models in the #AerieMan ads didn’t know that they weren’t promoting a real brand. Kelvin Davis, a blogger who appeared in the commercials, has spoken out against American Eagle by stating he did the project under the assumption it was legitimate.

“I have had people in the body positivity community upset with me about this whole thing,” said Davis. “My part and contribution to the project was 100% authentic and real.”

Kelvin went on to say that he supports body positivity for both men and women. He also suggested that American Eagle shot the commercials deceptively to get real, unscripted responses from the models.

“We were asked questions about male body image and those were our responses. Everything I said was heartfelt from a place we all can relate. I had nothing to do with the way it was marketed. My stance and advocation for body positivity has never been a joke.”

American Eagle released a statement to follow up the controversy, acknowledging that body positivity is not a joke and trying to claim that the #AerieMan ads were supporting this idea.

“American Eagle Outfitters used the #AerieMAN video to call attention to the serious issue of body positivity for its male customers,” said Chad Kessler, American Eagle Outfitters Global Brand President. “Although the #AerieMAN collection itself isn’t real, we are committed to stopping retouching on all AEO men’s underwear and swim images while showing more diverse body types starting holiday 2016.”

Why do you think American Eagle chose to make a series of hoax commercials simply to promote their plans to stop retouching male models? Did you fall for this April Fools’ joke?

[Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images]