Kamala Harris is many things.
She’s a powerful lawyer and attorney general, who spent years as the self-proclaimed “top cop” of California. She is a stepmother to two children. She is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as U.S. vice president. As of Sunday, she has a real chance to become the first woman to serve as U.S. president.
On Sunday, just hours after Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 U.S. presidential race, Harris received an unexpected endorsement from none other than English Charli xcx.
“kamala IS brat,” Charli posted on X — a reference to the singer’s sixth studio album, titled “brat,” which embraces the thrilling chaos and vulnerabilities of the party-girl lifestyle. Since it was released in June, the highly acclaimed album, along with its instantly iconic, slime green artwork, has come to signify not just a sound, but an esthetic and an attitude — chaotic, hedonistic, dirty, indifferent — especially among young women and terminally-online millennials.
In a TikTok interview from June, Charli XCX explained the essence of being a “brat:”: “You’re that girl who is a bit messy and loves to party and maybe says dumb things sometimes. She’s honest, blunt and a little bit volatile.”
Charli’s three-word Harris declaration immediately set the internet ablaze. Within minutes, fans were creating memes and TikToks combining the music and imagery of “brat” with clips of Harris. Others shared photos of individuals wearing lime green T-shirts with the name “Kamala” printed on them.
“This is worth more than a million dollars of paid media,” one X user wrote.
Late on Sunday, Harris’s campaign team decided to lean in on the viral phenomenon. On X, the official account for the campaign updated its cover photo to match the colour and font of the “brat” album cover.
By Monday, Democrats were posting their own memes using the “brat” esthetic — “demo(b) rat,” read a meme posted by the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association. The “brat-ification” of the Harris campaign, it seems, is well underway.
Despite the enthusiasm of the Harris campaign and some content creators, many Charli fans questioned whether Harris was, in fact, a “brat.” Others highlighted the cognitive dissonance — and sheer cringeness — of the moment.
“It’s not too late to delete this queen,” one user wrote. “rip brat summer (June 7, 2024 — July 21, 2024),” wrote another.
Many fans were quick to point out that the party-girl ethos of “brat” — Charli sings about ingesting illegal narcotics in the club bathroom — doesn’t gel with Harris’s history as a “tough-on-crime” attorney, whose record as a prosecutor includes her defence of the death penalty and controversial efforts to keep nonviolent prisoners locked up.
“girl the genocide,” reads a particularly viral post on X, a reference to Harris’s firm support for Israel’s ongoing siege on Gaza, which has killed at least 39,000 Palestinians. The post, written in the “brat” font on a lime green background, has been viewed 5.7 million times.
Like everything related to U.S. politics right now, the Kamala-brat discourse is messy and divisive. Is this the end of “brat summer” or the harbinger of a “brat fall”? Girl, it’s confusing sometimes.
