What's the connection between Charli XCX and Kamala Harris? - Lynchburg Marketing Agency

It’s been a brat summer, and maybe a brat green presidential race. I create these color roundups as I listen through artists’ discography, — waiting to drop them at moments of relevance. What wasn’t in my content calendar? Charli XCX’s brat album influencing the aesthetic of Kamala Harris memes.

kamala IS brat

— Charli (@charli_xcx) July 22, 2024

Charli XCX said it. Kamala is brat. But, what does that mean? Right now, aesthetically, the lime green is just about as popular online as the enigmatic coconut and palm tree emojis (*insert Kamala signature cackle*). It explains why Kamala HQ updated their profile to lime green — to the disdain of designers who don’t understand this GenX to GenZ moment.

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It’s in tune with the lo-fi, anti-clean-girl, cult of cringe trend. As it’s become less cool to try too hard (especially on social media), zanier graphic and photography styles have bubbled to the surface. Think harsh flash photos, unruly font combinations, and layouts that look like they were run off a Xerox machine in 1992.

To be a brat, in XCX’s view, is to be aggressive and cheeky and wholly unexpected, like the lime-green color of her album’s cover. The Brat-ification of Kamala Harris, The Atlantic

The concept is messy and the execution is bold. It’s a rough-around-the-edges feminine expression — assertive and neon.

None of that may sound like an appropriate description of Kamala Harris, but on Sunday, XCX posted on X that the vice president “IS brat.” And of all the endorsements Harris has received so far for her presidential campaign since Joe Biden announced that he’s dropping out of the race, this one, courtesy of a British pop star, seems to have ignited Harris’s supporters online the most. The candidate’s campaign has adopted the Brat aesthetic on social-media profile pages, and the internet is practically overrun with Brat-soundtracked edited videos of Harris. It’s not unusual for a White House hopeful’s team to try to tap into the parlance of younger voters, but as my colleague Charlie Warzel observed, the deluge of memes, many of them awash in Brat’s chartreuse shade, has fueled a remarkable grassroots-like enthusiasm for Harris. The Brat-ification of Kamala Harris, The Atlantic

Kamala herself looks buttoned up (even with the Chuck Taylors) — like any former prosecutor turned politician. But, she’s also a little weird. She uses bizarre anecdotes. She dances poorly in public. She laughs a lot.

The pairing of Harris memes with “Brat” fandom has surged since Sunday, when President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the race, but the idea had been percolating for at least the last several weeks.Charli XCX called Kamala Harris ‘brat.’ Here’s why that’s a strong endorsement for the candidate whose meme stock is bullish, CNN

In many ways, she’s not trying to be cool. Kamala does Kamala.

The amount this single tweet may have just done for the youth vote is not insignificant. https://t.co/VyQQVZnKmE

— David Hogg 🟧 (@davidhogg111) July 22, 2024

This is what has made her meme-able over the past several years.

So What Does it Mean to Be a Brat?

But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.

Charli XCX lists the attributes of brat.

A little messy
Likes to party
Maybe says some dumb things some times
Who feels like herself
Maybe also has a breakdown
kind of like parties through it
Very honest
Very blunt
A little bit volatile
Does dumb things

They’re not unlike the brats of the 80s. It’s an interesting revival of a term that labeled a nebulous group of GenX celebrities, the Brat Pack — revisited this summer with the documentary Brats. While I haven’t seen the documentary, the chatter around it has created a wave of nostalgia that fits perfectly within the current conversation about what it means to be young. As a millennial, I have to admit that now means GenZ.

McCarthy’s documentary… explores the lives today of actors who starred in such films as “The Breakfast Club,” “Sixteen Candles,” “St. Elmo’s Fire” and “Pretty in Pink.” The film is not about my life, but judging from the trailer it’s full of my memories and music. A new documentary revisits the ‘80s Brat Pack. It’s like reliving my adolescence, CNN

Instead, millennials are sandwiched between these groups — like two mirrors turned toward each other. On one end you have the young GenX group (slightly younger than Kamala but bearing resemblance). These were the mall rats with their sneakers, walkmans, perms, and Guess jeans. I have 21 Jumpstreet (tv series) on DVD — it was a time.

On the other side you have GenZ, just starting to define their young-adulthood. That creates a fresh energy in the trends they create and reinvent.

What made these movies so alluring to me was one simple fact: The characters — high school students, college students and even young professionals — showed me a world I hadn’t yet fully entered. It was the world of my older sisters, and as any little girl will tell you, that’s the world that matters the most. A new documentary revisits the ‘80s Brat Pack. It’s like reliving my adolescence, CNN

Regarding that reinvention, GenZ often references media from the 80s and 90s. That time before smartphones and being chronically online. The magic of that time for them? Being present and celebrating the waiting-ness of youth. In their time, the Brat Pack was messy — on-screen and off. Their characters were glamorously disheveled, making mistakes, and fumbling through young adulthood. Off-screen, many of the actors had similar struggles with everything about their personal lives (relationships, addictions, career lows) documented by the paparazzi.

Like many younger siblings, I experience nostalgia not just for my own childhood and adolescence but for the many events I experienced vicariously through my sisters. Whatever films or actors or musicians caught my sisters’ attention inevitably captured mine. A new documentary revisits the ‘80s Brat Pack. It’s like reliving my adolescence, CNN

And you’ll see a lot of just hanging around — vibing.

@charlixcx

what it means to be a brat :) #OffTheRecord

♬ Club classics – Charli xcx

In a world where moments have become so manufactured and events are very styled, a girl who seems like she’s winging it feels like something new.

But Charli XCX is in a special position in today’s pop world, having toiled for over a decade before reaching an exuberant cultural peak with “Brat” this summer. Harris fans’ adopting “Brat” memes may cast Harris in the same light. How Kamala Harris became part of Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ summer, NBC

It’s not exactly ironic but, notable that Charli XCX isn’t exactly winging it at this point. She’s made a calculated arc to bring her career into its next phase. Similarly, Kamala isn’t making this up as she goes along.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>why did I stay up till 3am making a von dutch brat coconut tree edit featuring kamala harris and why can’t I stop watching it on repeat <a href=”https://t.co/hqcmerD1Pb”>pic.twitter.com/hqcmerD1Pb</a></p>— ryan (@ryanlong03) <a href=”https://twitter.com/ryanlong03/status/1808510079382982870?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 3, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

But, they’re both having authentic moments that resonate with GenZ. Maybe their direction has been mapped out but, they’re stopping to stomp on a few flowers along the way.

The memes first started popping up in the days after Biden’s abysmal debate performance. With calls for Biden to drop out getting louder, it became clear that the most obvious route would be for him to pass the baton to Kamala. How to Explain the Kamala-Brat Situation to Your Parents, The Cut

This leaves us with an interesting combination of the pop star and politician — littered with green.

Shortly after Biden endorsed his VP for the presidential nomination, the Biden campaign page on X was converted into Kamala HQ. The page, obviously run by plugged-in social-media professionals, quickly changed its banner image to one that read “kamala hq” in the style of the Brat album cover. How to Explain the Kamala-Brat Situation to Your Parents, The Cut

It will be interesting to see how the trend turns. But, for now, the green background, and black lowercase serif is inescapable.