Modern Wisdom
Modern Wisdom

Why Sydney Sweeney Has Two Big Targets On Her Chest - William Costello - #1152

September 19, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The actress Sydney Sweeney recently starred in an advertisement for a sports betting company called Novig, where she appears in revealing outfits while listing the sports users can wager on. The ad triggered a fierce backlash, particularly from female commentators and journalists, who accused her of setting women’s sports back decades by reducing female athletes to sexual objects for the male gaze. Evolutionary psychology researcher William Costello joins the podcast to explain why the outrage was so predictable and intense, and what it reveals about the underlying psychology of female competition, coalitional behavior, and sexual economics.

The Three Psychological Drivers of the Backlash

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **Episode Introduction & Live Show Announcement** - Chris Williamson announces UK/Ireland live tour dates and introduces returning guest William Costello to discuss the Sydney Sweeney sports betting ad controversy.
  • 2 (01:15) **The Sydney Sweeney Ad & The Backlash** - The hosts play the Novig sports betting ad featuring Sweeney and dissect the furious online response accusing her of setting women's sports back decades.
  • 3 (03:12) **Tribalism & Double Standards in Feminist Criticism** - The hosts explore how the outrage is selective, targeting Sweeney for lacking progressive bona fides while similar sexualization by approved figures is celebrated.
  • 4 (05:47) **The "Male Gaze" Argument Collapses** - The discussion dismantles the claim that women's sports exist to avoid the male gaze, noting men are the primary consumers of female athletics.
  • 5 (08:55) **Evolutionary Psychology Framework: Three Core Concepts** - Costello introduces the three evolutionary psychology ideas that explain why women specifically hate Sydney Sweeney: intersexual competition, sexual economics theory, and female coalitional psychology.
  • 6 (12:34) **Intersexual Competition: How Women Derogate Rivals** - Costello details the covert tactics women use to attack rivals' mate value, focusing on feigning concern and questioning sexual morality.
  • 7 (15:25) **Sexual Economics Theory & Price Enforcement** - The hosts draw a parallel between slut-shaming for women and "simp-shaming" for men as mirror-image price enforcement mechanisms on the mating market.

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Show Notes

William Costello is a psychology researcher and Ph.D. student specialising in evolutionary psychology.

Expect to learn why the internet is in an uproar of Sydney Sweeney's latest ad campaign, why so many women vehemently hate Sydney Sweeney and not other creators who do similar stunts, why Sydney became so polarising in the feminist movement, what the double standard Sydney Sweeney is held to says about the modern feminist agenda and much more...

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