Confused?
(NEXSTAR) — It's probably been a confusing few weeks for some of you. First was Joe Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 Presidential Election, followed soon after by the presumptive nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the party ticket.
Then came a lot of memes, videos, "coconut trees," "existing in the context," and mentions of "brat" and "brat summer." Then, there's also something about something called the "KHive."
Still confused? Here's what's going on.
To begin with, you need to go back to June 7, the release date of “brat,” the bold and brash club-pop/hyperpop sixth album by British musician Charli XCX.
The tracklist of “brat” features a variety of dance-pop and electronic songs, often reminiscent of techno music from the 1990s and early 2000s. The album’s iconic but polarizing neon green cover also helped propel “brat” to meme status, with several online generators created that mimic the album’s somewhat visually offensive shade of green and black Arial font (see the photo below for a visual example).
The album and its themes of empowerment through friendship, having fun and partying particularly resonated with women and the LGBTQ community, especially amid ongoing political turmoil that directly affects them. However, it should be noted that listeners of all sexual identities and genders have notably been excited by this album.
Over the weeks since the release of “brat,” the music, the memes and the club aesthetics it references morphed into “brat summer” — which is kind of this year’s big internet phrase named after a certain mindset and outlook on life. One notable previous version of this is the Megan Thee Stallion-inspired “Hot Girl Summer,” which encouraged everyone (not just girls) to feel confident and proud of the way that they look.
The concept of “brat summer” is much the same, though with a slightly very-Millennial bent. As with anything relating to Millennials’ lives, there’s also a darker meaning behind the partying, too. Essentially, “brat summer” encourages enjoying life as much as you can in spite of the struggles you’re facing.
All of this coincided with the proliferation — separately, unrelated to "brat" — of various funny or odd VP Harris clips going viral on social media. These clips include, among many, her speech at a 2023 White House ceremony, in which Harris recalled a phrase of her mother's, with Harris laughingly saying: "She would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’”
Thus, memes of Harris set to songs like electro-pop artist Kim Petras' "Coconuts", or else, clips of Harris dancing set to other dance tracks with audio samples of Harris saying, "You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?" splice in throughout. Here's one example, as posted to TikTok by user zeo_choons.
It should also be mentioned that Harris' seemingly endless stores of laughter during interviews is also a part of the memes.
So "brat" and its memes existed (in the context) and so did various Kamala memes, it was only a matter of time until the two worlds collided. And Harris' ascension to presidential candidate was the exact time this portion of the meme stream began.
Almost immediately, Harris-"brat" memes took over social media sites like X and TikTok, with users posting good-natured videos of Harris' laughter and turns of phrase set over various tracks from "brat." Eventually, the memes made it onto news networks and even XCX herself, who later posted to X, "Kamala IS brat."
This led the actual Harris campaign to post their own "Kamala brat video" to its social channels, which was a surprise embrace of a seemingly underground movement by a major political party and campaign.
And so where does the "KHive" come in here?
As reported by the New York Times, Harris has long had a clique of fervent fans online, prompting MSNBC correspondent Joy-Ann Reid to call her fans the "KHive" back in 2017. This nickname is a play on "BeyHive," which is the name for fans of Beyoncé. Both Harris herself and Biden have referred to the "KHive" over the years, NYT reports.
Coincidentally, on Thursday, the Harris campaign released its launch ad, which was set to Beyoncé's rollicking, anthemic 2016 song, "Freedom."
Though Beyoncé is ordinarily very strict about licensing her music, CNN confirmed that Harris' team was granted clearance to use the song, a standout on the singer's groundbreaking album "Lemonade," throughout her campaign.
It goes without saying that the memes, remixes and cross-section of various pop cultural touchstones have been a boon for Harris, especially among Millennials and Gen Z. Many online wondered why "Kamala is BRAT" and the "KHive" have become so popular, while Hillary Clinton's various attempts to connect to younger people in 2016 (remember "Pokémon Go to the Polls"?) were seen as embarrassing.
As explained by many users of X, where the question was posed many times, the difference is that the current cultural moment began organically, by regular people, before morphing into a kind of promotion for a political campaign.
Both Harris' rise to the top of the Democratic ticket and the extra meme exposure seem to have reignited an unenthusiastic Democratic electorate. Many polls released in the past few days show Harris minimally trailing Trump, or else, edging him by several points. A Thursday Axios/Generation Lab poll also showed that 60% of voters between the ages of 18 and 34 said they'd vote for Harris over Trump if the election were held today.
Finally, despite the fact that music outlet Pitchfork declared "brat summer is dead" due to the commodification of the meme by Harris' and other political campaigns — and a poorly received "brat summer" video by New York City Mayor Eric Adams — Charli XCX herself has refuted the notion that "brat summer" has ended.
On Thursday afternoon, XCX posted a photo to Instagram in the "brat" style reading, "brat summer and it's the same but it's dead so it's not" (too much to explain why she phrased it this way, just trust us, it's another reference) along with the caption: "Oh? See u next week :)" — a cryptic tease of something yet to come.
