Dunkin’ Donuts faces backlash for ad using ‘genetics’ with star Gavin Casalegno

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Dunkin’ Donuts is the latest company under fire by social media users for its use of the word “genetics” in an ad featuring the “The Summer I Turned Pretty” star Gavin Casalegno posted on social media earlier this week.

The ad promotes the release of Dunkin’ Donuts’ new drink — the Golden Hour Refresher. In the 35 second ad, Casalegno, is sitting poolside with a Golden Hour Refresher placed by his side.

“Look, I didn’t ask to be the king of summer, it just kinda happened,” Casalegno said. “This tan? Genetics. I just got my color analysis back. Guess what? Golden Summer. Literally.”

The 25-year-old actor then lays down across a pool chair.

“I can’t help it,” Casalegno said. “Every time I drink a Dunkin’ Golden Hour Refresher, it’s like the sun just finds me. So if sipping these refreshers makes me the King of Summer, guilty as charged.”

Social media users are tying Casalegno’s use of the word “genetics” to its use in the Sweeney Sydney ad campaign for American Eagle , suggesting that both are a nod to eugenics and white supremacy.

“why are ads so obsessed with genetics all of a sudden,” one TikTok user wrote.

“What in the Sydney Sweeney did I just watch,” another user wrote.

“What’s up with ads and the word genetics rn,” one commentator wrote which garnered more than 40,000 likes.

The American Eagle ad campaign with Sydney Sweeney became a national conversation with people on the far-left accusing the brand of peddling Nazi propaganda whereas people on the right have championed Sweeney’s appearance, saying it marks the end to “woke” ads pushed onto the masses for the purpose of inclusivity.

In one of the American Eagle ads, Sweeney is seen buttoning up her pants and explaining how genes work. She says that” genes are passed down from parent to offspring, determining traits like hair, personality, and even eye color.”

“My jeans are blue,” Sweeney said with a smile — a play-on on the words jeans and genes.

The social media debacle over Sweeney’s advertisement made its way to main stream media with a college professor appearing on Good Morning America to explain how troubling this advertisement is.

“The pun ‘good jeans’ activates troubling historical associations for this country,” Kean University professor Robin Landa said on Tuesday. “The American eugenics movement, in its prime between 1900 and 1940, weaponized the idea of good genes just to justify White supremacism.”