Sydney Sweeney on a billboard in Times Square in her birthday suit and a tradwife milking a cow in a prairie-style dress have more in common than you might think.
They both use a tactic we’ll call “outrage then deny.”
First, they perform (very different) stereotypes of the ideal woman for lucrative attention: Sweeney the hot “pick me” girl, and tradwives like Ballerina Farm’s Hannah Neeleman and Nara Smith, the pious mother and wife. Then, when it comes to responding to the inevitable backlash, they plead ignorance.
Sweeney and tradwives “are two sides of the same publicity coin,” Lawrence Rosenberg, a communications strategist and media trainer for business leaders and companies, told Business Insider. “Plausible deniability keeps the conversation going and allows them to maintain their brand,” he said.
Sweeney means business
After Sweeney’s nearly-nude ad for the sports betting app Novig sparked outrage, she said the concept was “simple: cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports. The campaign brings that idea to life with confidence, humor, and a playful edge.”
In the ad, Sweeney, who is a strategic partner with and has equity in Novig, poses naked bar the minimal coverage provided by a basketball or tennis racket, and says: “No betting on wars or deaths and no politics. Just you, your takes, and sports.”
As the backlash grew, on September 14 she posted an Instagram story featuring athletes, including Serena Williams, posing nude for ESPN’s “The Body Issue.” The post seemed to suggest her ad and their photoshoots were the same, after female athletes said they found the Novig campaign reductive. On September 16, Novig’s CEO, Jacob Fortinsky, said Sweeney drove the messaging and visuals of the ad.
“Sweeney is extremely savvy, and that’s the part getting lost in the noise,” Lauren Beeching, a celebrity crisis PR, told Business Insider. In an interview she gave as a rising star in 2024, Sweeney shared how she convinced her parents to let her pursue acting by giving a Powerpoint presentation outlining her five-year business plan. Sweeney likely did the math on the Novig ad and “worked out that the disapproval costs her far less than the attention earns her,” Beeching said.
She added: “If she had a hand in writing it, she had a hand in her own defense, because a brand that’s declared itself interested only in sport can dismiss any criticism as somebody else introducing politics. The answer was ready before the ad was.”
Sweeney already used the “outrage then deny” tactic after critics labeled her 2025 American Eagle ad a white supremacist dog whistle. After staying quiet for five months, she told GQ last November that she loves jeans and simply “did a jeans ad.”
Being a tradwife sells
On the other side of the coin, trad wives like Neeleman and Smith have both rejected the “tradwife” label, a stance they have doubled down on in recent press interviews as they’ve tried to enter the mainstream.
Critics say their content promotes a regressive form of womanhood that they themselves are not living. They film themselves in spotless kitchens, cooking time-consuming meals for their husband and kids with a smile, when in reality they are building successful businesses.
Smith spent close to her entire 1.5-hour-long episode of “Call Her Daddy” arguing that while she was made the “posterchild” for the tradwife movement, she said she doesn’t “prioritize being a homemaker. I’m a working mom.” In the same episode, she said her online presence took off when she took on the passive, cooking-for-her-family-in-the-kitchen format she has become synonymous with, so she leaned in.
In a June 2026 interview with New York Magazine, Neeleman said, “When the term tradwife comes up, or I’m seeing things about ‘Yesteryear,’ I don’t lean into them.” “Yesteryear” is a buzzy novel about a tradwife influencer who gets a rude awakening when she is transported back in time to the 1800s.
But her signature homesteading content is what got her the November 2024 cover of Evie Magazine, which calls itself the “conservative Cosmopolitan” and publishes articles with titles like “The male gaze is not a hate crime.”
The word “tradwife” now carries a political association that brands who influencers want to work with take into account, Beeching said. It’s therefore wise to separate themselves from the label, while carrying on making the same content that helped them build their followings.
Neither Sweeney nor the trad wives have changed what she’s selling, Beeching said, adding: “They’ve changed the label on the tin.”
“Images are incredibly powerful messengers of information that would be less savory or compelling if stated aloud,” Katie Gatti Tassin, a cultural critic who co-hosts the podcast “Diabolical Lies” with the “Yesteryear” author Caro Claire Burke, told Business Insider.
Sweeney, Neeleman, and Smith’s representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
So far, this strategy has proven effective. Sweeney’s Instagram post of the Novig ad has garnered 1.2 million likes and 54,800 comments in just over a week. Smith has a cookbook coming out with HarperCollins in October, and Neeleman has queues out the door of her Utah farm shop.
But with Sweeney losing 200,000 followers in recent days, Tassin, wonders how many more times the “naked outrage chesspiece” will work for her.
“Attention and sales aren’t the same thing,” Beeching said.
