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By Sophie Clark
Live News Reporter
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The term "brat summer" is taking the internet by storm—and helping to drive Vice President Kamala Harris' popularity among young voters.
Since British pop star Charli XCX launched the album Brat on June 7, Gen Zers and LGBTQ people have been using the term "brat summer" to describe a hedonistic few months under the sun.
In mid-July, the term's usage took an unexpected turn, as people began to notice "fan-cams" of Harris set to the music from the album. After President Joe Biden endorsed Harris for the presidency, her campaign's @KamalaHQ account on X, formerly Twitter, changed its banner to the same chartreuse green color of the Brat album cover.
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Suddenly, the term "brat" has moved beyond Brooklyn to the orbit of the woman who will likely challenge Donald Trump for the presidency on November 5. But is "brat" the right messaging for Harris and her campaign?
Is Kamala "Brat"?
Charli XCX has previously said that a brat is someone who "says some dumb things sometimes" and is "honest, blunt and a little bit volatile."
On July 22, the pop star posted on X, "Kamala IS Brat"—a sentence that means a lot to some and absolutely nothing to others. As of July 23, the post had received 49 million views.
The word "brat" is typically considered disparaging. It implies a whiny person, usually a girl, who is spoiled and rude. Charli's rebranding seems to push back on that idea, asking, "Why am I called a brat for demanding more out of life?"
Though Harris and a hard-partying icon from Essex, both of whom have South Asian heritage, may seem to have little in common, there are aspects of each woman's rise that binds them.
Charli, 31, grew out of an online grassroots fandom. Working as a musician since she was 14, she was first discovered on Myspace and went on to DJ underground raves before producing several records. To her fans—known online as "angles"—the success of Brat, the singer's sixth studio record, shows off the years of hard work she has put into her music.
While Harris, 59, is unlikely to find herself at an East London rave anytime soon, her political rise is being viewed through a similar lens. Her supporters have highlighted her years of public service, beginning as a prosecutor, before reaching the vice presidency.
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While praising the vice president online, her supporters sometimes use the coconut emoji—a reference to a speech Harris gave in which she mentioned something her mother often said: "I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree."
Gen Z Voters
Both Charli XCX and Harris have amassed young fan bases.
John, an 18-year-old TikTok creator from Pittsburgh made a "fan-cam" of the Democrat with a green background that has become synonymous with "brat." The video, posted on his @olvsens account, now has 67,000 likes.
He told Newsweek: "I am feeling very different [post-Biden]! The entire internet seems very excited also that Kamala is now the nominee and I will be supporting her fully!!"
"Brat" is "an empowering trend that's happening," he said, adding, "People are saying this album has been making them feel more confident!" He saw Harris as embodying these traits.
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Lucy Rinzler-Day, a market research analyst in New York, said the jokes online had endeared Harris to her.
The 25-year-old told Newsweek: "When I saw the first brat edit I felt two things. One, she's a very enticing, fun personality, and two, I felt like this was a kind of powerful gateway into visibility for her.
"The memes not only keep us engaged and motivated through what's a really important election but they also show us the silliness and absurdity of the situation.
"Is she perfect? No. But do we have to get hyped and rally around her for the sake of democracy? Absolutely."
Rinzler-Day said the issues that she cared about most this election were climate, economics and reproductive rights.
She added: "Kamala is relevant to brat summer. I think she's in the universe of women getting what they want."
Album Analysis
Brat, which has 15 tracks in the standard version, holds lyrics that fit Harris' narrative. The album's opener, "360," begins with the words "I went my own way, and I made it."
The song has received a lot of traction on the internet, as the lyric "I'm so Julia"—a reference to "it" girl Julia Fox—can easily be replaced with "I'm so Kamala."
The tune "Girl, So Confusing" is about the way women in the music industry are expected to be best friends, when they may have nothing in common and are actually in constant competition.
The song can be applied to other professional spheres, such as politics, where female politicians are often expected to be warm and maternal despite being in roles defined by opposition and debate. Those women who don't adhere to such expectations may be described as "nasty."
In the track "I Think About It All the Time," Charli ponders whether it is time to start a family. Though Harris has two stepchildren, she has been criticized by conservatives for not having biological children.
JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, said on Fox News in 2022: "We're effectively run in this country ... by a bunch of childless cat ladies, who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. It's just a basic fact.
"If you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?"
Presidential campaigns have historically been about which candidate can appear the most patriotic, so it's a rogue choice for the Harris campaign to align itself with a British pop star. But since millennials and Gen Zers now make up more than half of the American voting population, it is imperative that Harris' campaign reaches and appeals to younger voters.
"Pokémon Go to the polls" may not have worked for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but an inundation of fan-made "brat" videos just might work for Harris.
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