Can brat summer last through the fall?
If you've just now arrived on a wave of memes, we're glad to have you. It's OK if you don't know what "brat" is, or what it has to do with Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race or Kamala Harris's quick ascent as the presumptive Democratic nominee. I'm here to help.
Brat is, in factual terms, the sixth studio album from the British songwriter and pop artist Charli XCX, which came out in early June—just in time for Pride. The album, with a lime green cover bearing only the word "brat" in a hazy sans serif font, is a grimy dance-pop romp, full of cheeky lyrics and not-so-thinly-veiled references to the use of recreational stimulants; it is, in other words, party music, in addition to being widely praised by critics. Brat tracks aren't the summer's biggest Billboard hits, but the album has been inarguably massive among exactly the right people to turn it into a perpetual motion machine for internet jokes: folks who are young, queer, extremely fashionable, very online and sick of the gloom of current events and Taylor Swift's stifling good-girl pop hegemony.
As a result, the album and its lime green motif have become near-immediate fodder for memes, mostly in an effort to mark things as a particular type of edgy, zoomer-approved cool. (Or, in the grand ironic tradition of memes, in an effort to paint otherwise utterly conventional things that happen to be green with the same brush.) As meme-creation goes, the album is about as accessible as it gets: Even if you haven't heard the album, you know the word, and Charli hasn't redefined it in any meaningful sense. Describing something as Brat-coded, washing an image in Brat green, or putting your own blurry word against a lime backdrop—as a gaggle of revelers on New York's gay summer party spot Fire Island did with "kamala" in reaction to Sunday's announcement—doesn't exactly challenge the rhetorical or graphic-design skills of those who wish to invoke the album's vibes. Brat is for the people—as long as the people are hot weirdos ready to party.
What any of this has to do with Harris is basically nothing, but that's sort of the point. The push to replace Biden with her after the president's debate disaster had already supercharged an existing ironic meme about the vice president, thanks to a remark Harris once made about having not fallen out of a coconut tree. The turn of phrase was odd and catchy enough to get stuck in your head and be fun to repeat. And, no matter what anyone tells you, that—and good timing—are all that's really necessary for a meme to reach escape velocity.
That's largely what's happened with the Brat-coding of Harris, which has been affirmed by Charli herself, in a tweet on Sunday night that simply said: "Kamala IS brat." The meme has flown so far, so fast that MSNBC and CNN devoted time in their evening shows to parsing its meaning. But the beauty of it is that it doesn't really mean anything, except maybe that a sizable proportion of young Americans seem pleased that Harris is headed toward the nomination instead of Biden. The kids are tired and feel disenfranchised, and they're greeting what's plausibly good news with a mixture of mostly ironic detachment and, somewhere under there, a little bit of earnest hope. They might even show up to vote; Politico reported this morning that Vote.org saw a 700% spike in registrations in the two days since Biden made his announcement, more than when Swift made her Instagram endorsement four years ago. It's not inconceivable that young people might even be donating money to Harris: Her team said that, over the past few days, almost 900,000 people made their first contribution of the cycle. Seems like Brat summer might be headed into the fall.
Charli XCX at the 2024 Met Gala in New York. Photographer: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Brat is, in factual terms, the sixth studio album from the British songwriter and pop artist Charli XCX, which came out in early June—just in time for Pride. The album, with a lime green cover bearing only the word "brat" in a hazy sans serif font, is a grimy dance-pop romp, full of cheeky lyrics and not-so-thinly-veiled references to the use of recreational stimulants; it is, in other words, party music, in addition to being widely praised by critics. Brat tracks aren't the summer's biggest Billboard hits, but the album has been inarguably massive among exactly the right people to turn it into a perpetual motion machine for internet jokes: folks who are young, queer, extremely fashionable, very online and sick of the gloom of current events and Taylor Swift's stifling good-girl pop hegemony.
As a result, the album and its lime green motif have become near-immediate fodder for memes, mostly in an effort to mark things as a particular type of edgy, zoomer-approved cool. (Or, in the grand ironic tradition of memes, in an effort to paint otherwise utterly conventional things that happen to be green with the same brush.) As meme-creation goes, the album is about as accessible as it gets: Even if you haven't heard the album, you know the word, and Charli hasn't redefined it in any meaningful sense. Describing something as Brat-coded, washing an image in Brat green, or putting your own blurry word against a lime backdrop—as a gaggle of revelers on New York's gay summer party spot Fire Island did with "kamala" in reaction to Sunday's announcement—doesn't exactly challenge the rhetorical or graphic-design skills of those who wish to invoke the album's vibes. Brat is for the people—as long as the people are hot weirdos ready to party.
Brat-coded at the Queer Liberation March in New York on June 30. Photo: Alamy
What any of this has to do with Harris is basically nothing, but that's sort of the point. The push to replace Biden with her after the president's debate disaster had already supercharged an existing ironic meme about the vice president, thanks to a remark Harris once made about having not fallen out of a coconut tree. The turn of phrase was odd and catchy enough to get stuck in your head and be fun to repeat. And, no matter what anyone tells you, that—and good timing—are all that's really necessary for a meme to reach escape velocity.
That's largely what's happened with the Brat-coding of Harris, which has been affirmed by Charli herself, in a tweet on Sunday night that simply said: "Kamala IS brat." The meme has flown so far, so fast that MSNBC and CNN devoted time in their evening shows to parsing its meaning. But the beauty of it is that it doesn't really mean anything, except maybe that a sizable proportion of young Americans seem pleased that Harris is headed toward the nomination instead of Biden. The kids are tired and feel disenfranchised, and they're greeting what's plausibly good news with a mixture of mostly ironic detachment and, somewhere under there, a little bit of earnest hope. They might even show up to vote; Politico reported this morning that Vote.org saw a 700% spike in registrations in the two days since Biden made his announcement, more than when Swift made her Instagram endorsement four years ago. It's not inconceivable that young people might even be donating money to Harris: Her team said that, over the past few days, almost 900,000 people made their first contribution of the cycle. Seems like Brat summer might be headed into the fall.
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