“Kamala IS brat”: three words that shouldn’t mean anything to anyone, but in fact may have sounded the death knell on the pop culture phenomenon of 2024.
Charli xcx’s songs and the lime-green colour “have decorated the summer of the world’s coolest it-girls for weeks”, said The Economist. Her “brat” album has become a “defining pop-culture statement“, spawning “a meme format, a fashion trend, and for many, a life philosophy”, added Time.
But her short “Kamala IS brat” tweet and the subsequent co-opting of the brat aesthetic by the Kamala Harris presidential campaign has led to some cultural commentators declaring the phenomenon dead.
‘Harris embodies the 2024 definition of brat’
The singer herself has defined “brat” culture in interviews: “You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party.” All a brat needs is “just like a pack of cigs and like a Bic lighter”.
Of course, “none of that screams White House”, said The Economist. Yet xcx, for her part, welcomed the Harris presidential campaign – and in turn, the VP’s campaign embraced the moment, reposting the show of support, using the album’s signature green colour and typeface in one of its social media profiles, and posting “Brat”-themed memes on its accounts.
But soon “people who were absolutely not having a Brat Summer – CNN reporter Jake Tapper, Minnesota governor Tim Walz – began to pile atop an already fragile meme”, said Pitchfork‘s Arielle Gordon. By the end of the day, “Brat Summer had been pronounced dead”.
Although Harris is an “establishment Democrat with relatively moderate politics”, in certain contexts, “she embodies this 2024 definition of brat”, said Time. “As the first woman, Black person, and person of South Asian descent to be vice president, Harris’s career has been characterised by being decidedly different.”
As is the case with everything good,” said Culted‘s Robyn Pullen, “it seems people have decided that Charli xcx’s brat is over… before it’s actually over”.
While the phenomenon “might be ageing out of its initial hype” it “doesn’t mean it’s over”. Charli xcx certainly doesn’t think so; an Instagram post she shared this week acknowledging the claims that brat summer is over, and widely believed to be trailing a remix of the “Brat” album, is captioned: “oh ? see u next week :)”
‘We memed too close to the sun’
With her endorsement of Harris, “whatever counter-cultural cachet the idea of ‘brat summer’ may once have had has been obliterated overnight,” said Dazed‘s James Greig.
“Nothing about brat is inherently political”, said AntiArt. Charli xcx “throwing support behind a female candidate in the name of ‘girl power’ feels kind of lame and outdated to me”. Kamala’s co-opting of brat is now “as edgy and transgressive as Hillary Clinton’s cameo appearance on ‘Broad City'”, said Greig.
Charli’s tweet may have “put the final nail in the coffin of the brat summer meme”, wrote Mother Jones‘s Sophie Hurwitz. “Of course, discussing brat summer in Mother Jones also kills brat summer.” Hurwitz’s colleague Siri Chilukuri agreed: “anytime a mainstream outlet writes about something it’s over.”
That assessment gets to the heart of the issue when it comes to who killed brat. “It’s easy to blame other people,” said Dazed’s Greig, “but if you really want to know who killed brat summer, you must only take a look in the mirror”. Every person on the internet is to blame because “we memed too close to the sun”.
Whether or not the phenomenon is dead, it’s worth reflecting on what brat brought to the world. Charli xcx “stepped up as the self-possessed, shamelessly messy anti-hero” that the world needed at a time “when the cultural mainstream is increasingly conditioned by stifling puritanism”, said Vogue‘s Mahoro Seward.
“Is the idea that we’re all kind of Brat?” Tapper asked on CNN. “Not anymore, Jake,” said Pitchfork’s Gordon. “But for a brief moment, it seemed like we all could be.”