The Kamala Harris Memes, Explained: From Falling Out of a Coconut Tree to Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ Branding

Chris Gardner
·5 min read

Kamala Harris is having a brat summer.

President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign on Sunday with a bombshell announcement made, as he said, “in the best interest of my party and the country.” Shortly after, Biden offered his “full support and endorsement” for Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee this year. In return, Harris sent out a statement of her own thanking Biden for “extraordinary leadership” as president and for his decades of service to the U.S., while also accepting his endorsement with an “intention to earn and win this nomination.”

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The exchange set off a wave of endorsements across Capitol Hill and beyond. Hollywood added to the chorus, and the coffers filled with cash. Then came another green light, this one from a British pop star with a stranglehold on the cultural zeitgeist. “Kamala IS brat,” posted 31-year-old Charli XCX on the social media platform X.

The post went viral and according to X metrics, had been viewed north of 32 million times as of Monday morning. The confirmation clearly made sense to Charli’s legion of fans, dubbed “Charli’s Angels,” while others admitted they are still catching up to brat-coded lingo. (“I don’t understand this but I’m game,” replied Ford News podcaster Jonathan Ford.)

To fully understand the concept of “brat,” it’s best to turn to Charli XCX since it is, after all, the title of her sixth studio album and the ethos of her current pop superstar era, which launched in June. “You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes,” the singer-songwriter said herself in a TikTok clip. “Who feels like herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of, like, parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.”

That explanation might not seem like the most ringing endorsement of a U.S. presidential candidate but beyond that, Charli has said that “brat” represents an attitude, a type of brazen confidence amid the messiness that has clearly struck a chord with Gen Z and millennials. Fans have also latched onto the album artwork, the word “brat” spelled out in slightly blurred Arial font on a meticulously selected color of green in the shade Pantone 3570-C. Per Charli, her team (which includes longtime creative director Imogene Strauss) dissected more than 65 shades to find the right one. “The conversations around the shade of green were weeks long,” Strauss told Billboard. “We analyzed every single element: where has this color been used before, what are its associations, who reacts to it and how.”

After Charli posted “kamala IS brat” on Sunday, the official rapid response page of Harris’ presidential campaign on X reacted to it in a big way by changing its profile banner to match “brat” branding with the words kamala hq. The account replaced the Biden-Harris campaign one, which had also leaned heavily into online slang and the memeification of the internet, going so far as to use a logo of “Dark Brandon” with red laser eyes.

One needn’t be extremely online to understand why all of this makes sense to strategists and political insiders. It’s all about engaging younger voters and pulling youth into the Democratic party by meeting them where they are. Charli XCX’s endorsement is akin to sending out a bat signal to the brat army and anyone under the age of 30.

“This has the potential to be a game changer for youth voter turnout going into November,” Stevie O’Hanlon, communications director for the youth-led climate activist group Sunrise Movement, told The Hill Monday in response to Harris gaining support to be the party’s nominee this November. “The lack of memes and excitement on the internet with Joe Biden was pretty deafening.”

The Hollywood Reporter checked in with a rep for Charli XCX, who was not available for additional comment.

Harris, meanwhile, has been pretty loud online. TikTok and X users, in particular, seem to be inspired by a liberal woman of color in the Democratic party who has been known to dance, laugh and deliver catchy speeches involving coconut trees. During a speech at the White House in May 2023 at an event for expanding opportunities for Hispanic Americans, Harris leaned on something that her mother used to say. “My mother … would give us a hard time sometimes, and 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?'” said Harris, who then chuckled. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

The viral speech has taken on a life of its own over the past year, further fueled by the recent roller coaster of the political landscape. It has generated north of 47 million posts on TikTok alone and inspired countless remixes, lip syncs and headlines. To bring it back to brat, an X user named Ryan Long even stayed up until 3 a.m. to make a remix featuring Harris’ voice with Charli XCX’s single “Von dutch.” Looks like Harris is, indeed, having a brat summer. Only time will tell if she can ride the wave from green to blue come November.

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