‘Brat, what’s that?’: Harris’s meme fame (sort of) makes its way to the DNC

Six hours and 26 minutes after Joe Biden endorsed Kamala Harris to be the Democratic presidential nominee, a three-word tweet upended the presidential race.

“Kamala IS brat,” singer Charli xcx tweeted.

The British pop star’s tweet wasn’t just referencing her album, brat – already the soundtrack of the summer – but merely adding to the viral cacophony of mashup videos that featured Harris laughing and dancing to songs from her album.

It was also a larger exaltation of Harris’s personality. Being “brat”, according to Charli xcx, is “just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it”.

Put another way, “the brat girl is authentic and unabashed, wholly herself, says what she thinks, means what she says, can’t be shamed because she owns all of her messiness, awkwardness, shortcomings”, said Abigail De Kosnik, a professor at the Center for New Media at the University of California, Berkeley.

“Harris has long come across in interviews and social media videos as real and very much herself, unafraid to laugh loud and dance in public, proud to geek out and be weird about things she loves (Venn diagrams, her campaign buses), so she has never been invested in being or seeming ‘perfect’,” she said.

The meme exploded on Twitter, TikTok and beyond, helping the Harris campaign engage younger voters – a critical demographic. The Harris campaign immediately embraced the meme, changing the background of its rapid response account on Twitter to match the chartreuse album cover with its plain font.

The Guardian asked some attendees at the Democratic convention whether they had heard of the meme.

“Brat? What’s that?” said Pamela Cleveland, 60, who had travelled up to Chicago all the way from Temple, Texas. “I don’t know what brat is, though I’ve been hearing it a lot recently.”

Her friend and travelling companion, Sharon Rose, 66, was equally bemused: “I’ve been hearing that it’s something cool, but I don’t know why.”

After the Guardian gave one explanation of brat as slightly messy, strong, street smart and authentically real, both faces lit up.

“Then Kamala is definitely brat,” exclaimed Cleveland. “She’s relatable, people of all races and nationalities can relate to her. It makes sense.”

Harold Love, a Democrat who represents Nashville in the Tennessee legislature, told the Guardian he also hadn’t heard of the meme.

“I haven’t seen that,” he said on the floor of the Democratic convention Monday evening. “I don’t know what that means.”

Raumesh Akbari, the Democratic leader in the Tennessee state senate and a self-described “geriatric millennial”, said she had learned the term recently.

“Kamala is brat,” she said. “I’m like, OK, Charli, I get it, I get it. I understand what it means. I need to get a button, I’ve seen them around.”

Priya Sundareshan, an Arizona state senator who just turned 40, was wearing lime-green shoes to signify brat.

“I’m a little too old for that, but I heard about it and that’s why I wear these lime-green shoes, because apparently that is the colour of brat!” she said with a laugh.

Asked whether brat signifies that Harris has a strong connection with young voters, Sundareshan replied: “Absolutely. I know we’ve seen that with the gen Z and millennial influencers who have come out in support and are spreading the message. Kamala is definitely #brat and I’m a young cool kid, yeah!”

The Guardian attempted to approach Greta Gerwig, the Barbie director, on the convention floor Monday evening to ask her whether Kamala was brat.

“No, sorry, she can’t talk,” an assistant said before a Guardian reporter could pose the question.

An effort to inquire with Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic senator from Minnesota, was also unsuccessful.

“I’m not doing interviews,” Klobuchar said.

Related: ‘I was not voting before, now I am’: gen Z voters on what they think of Kamala Harris

Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor at Syracuse University who has studied social media and presidential campaigns, said that it made sense that some voters may not have heard of the meme. She noted the campaign had visibly embraced the meme on Twitter, but not on other platforms.

“That’s strategic on the part of the campaign. They didn’t amplify it across platforms,” she said. “It’s strategic because it only resonates or resonates clearly with a particular demographic, which is meaningful to the Democrats. The Democrats need young voters.

“They’re an important voter segment for the Democratic party, but they’re not the base. And so they can’t alienate the base by going too far into this pop culture reference that they don’t get.

“Strategically, it is a dance that the campaign has to walk,” she added. “That’s because their voter base doesn’t get Kamala as brat, because for the most part, right, voters tend to be older. And that meme in particular is confusing. Those older voters, like, they’re not listening to Charli xcx’s music.”