Has your mom recently texted you some version of the question, “What is Brat?” Mine certainly has. Charli XCX’s latest album has reached the boomers thanks to the powerful combination of Kamala Harris and people who are addicted to posting. The stars aligned, and now Jake Tapper is sort of aware of what it means to be so Julia. But your parents want to know about Brat, and how do you even begin to explain the album, the memes, and how it all relates to Harris? You send them this post, a carefully crafted explainer made with both boomers and out-of-touch Gen-Xers in mind. Before you know it, the whole family will be bumpin’ that all the way to the voting booth.
What is Brat?
Brat is Charli XCX’s latest album. The cover looks like this:
That’s why you’ve seen that shade of green and that specific font as part of the Kamala memes. In addition to being the most critically acclaimed album of Charli’s career, it has also been all over the internet. There’s the viral “Apple” dance, the bright green Brat wall where Charli provided updates, and plenty of memes that you don’t need to understand.
“You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown,” Charli said in a TikTok explaining what “brat” means to her. “But [she] kind of like parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.”
What is the coconut-tree meme?
Okay, so you need some context before we get into the meat of this Brat thing. People think Kamala is funny. Over the years, people have laughed at her for not knowing how to sing “Wheels on the Bus,” for her love of Venn diagrams, and for her turkey-cooking instructions. This reached a fever pitch earlier this year, when someone shared a clip of a 2023 speech in which Kamala shared some wisdom she received from her mother:
this video is literally like medicine to me. i watch it once every week or two and every time i do i get an enduring hit of light euphoria for the next 45 minutes pic.twitter.com/eIF6Rwiir0
— charlie squire (@evil_female) February 9, 2024
The laugh, the pivot to being deathly serious, the fact that we do exist in the context of all in which we live and what came before us. All of this was ripe for memeing and remained so for months, when it crashed directly into the Brat meme cycle.
When did Kamala x Brat posting start?
The memes first started popping up in the days after Biden’s abysmal debate performance. With calls for Biden to drop out getting louder, it became clear that the most obvious route would be for him to pass the baton to Kamala.
On July 3, five days after the debate, this post went up:
why did I stay up till 3am making a von dutch brat coconut tree edit featuring kamala harris and why can’t I stop watching it on repeat pic.twitter.com/hqcmerD1Pb
— ryan (@ryanlong03) July 3, 2024
Two days later, this one went viral on TikTok:
And we were off! The next three weeks were filled with speculation as to whether or not Biden would drop out of the race … and Kamala fancams. There was also a whole thing where people were splicing the coconut-tree speech into various pop songs, but the less said about that the better. (This one, set to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” is my favorite.)
Has Kamala embraced Brat?
Mmmm, kinda. Shortly after Biden endorsed his VP for the presidential nomination, the Biden campaign page on X was converted into Kamala HQ. The page, obviously run by plugged-in social-media professionals, quickly changed its banner image to one that read “kamala hq” in the style of the Brat album cover.
The Biden campaign’s official account, Biden-Harris HQ, has officially rebranded to Kamala HQ with a ‘brat’ theme. pic.twitter.com/xy4FhdE5h7
— Pop Base (@PopBase) July 22, 2024
Harris herself has not said a word about Brat or the coconut-tree meme, which is for the best. Variety critic Allison Herman hit the nail on the head when she posted on X, “kamala if you’re reading this do NOT acknowledge the coconut memes. I repeat: do NOT acknowledge the coconut memes. the children will turn on you.”
While Kamala hasn’t said anything about it yet, everyone else has. Charli, in an X post that’s now been seen 49 million times, wrote “kamala IS brat.” Jake Tapper attempted to explain the phenomenon on CNN. Stephen Colbert did the “Apple” dance and even threw his arms up from his hips on the right beat.
What’s the endgame here?
Winning the presidency, I guess? Hopefully Kamala never acknowledges either the Brat memes or the coconut tree and lets the kids (adults ages 26 to 33) keep having their fun online. At the very most, the campaign could play “Von Dutch” on the first day of the convention. Anything more than that would be cringe.
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