Since I basically live under a rock, passing on all pop culture and instead watch an inordinate amount of dreary political videos that make one ever despondent for the future of the world, I had no idea this was going on and has been going on long before Trump got shot (or not) and Biden finally acquiesced. An entire generation of younger Americans waiting to be represented by someone of their time. And now it’s here.
And KamalaHQ has embraced all of it, with her social media now the lime green of Brat, Instagram here, Twitter here. As British pop star Charli XCX posted on X that “kamala IS brat”
Source: Wired
Jake Tapper looked as flummoxed as everyone else. After a week spent trying to figure out the whys and hows of the assassination attempt against former US president Donald Trump, the CNN anchor was now facing something far more perplexing: why a British pop singer was calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “brat.” As his panel on The Lead tried to explain, he eventually put it together: We’re all brat. “I will aspire to be brat,” Tapper concluded.
So say we all, apparently.
What’s happened in the week since President Joe Biden announced he would not be seeking reelection and tapped his veep, Harris, as his pick for the nomination, the meme-ification of the presidential election in the US has gone from a cautious yellow to a neon, slimelike “Let’s go” green.
Shortly after Biden made his announcement on Sunday, British pop star Charli XCX posted on X that “kamala IS brat” and solidified something that had been percolating for weeks. The internet that had seemed to either feel “meh” about Biden or had been spending its time on the Trump Train or spinning up conspiracies suddenly snapped to attention. The Harris HQ Instagram account embraced the meme. Gays on Fire Island had “Kamala” shirts in the Brat album cover’s lime green before sundown on Sunday.
Brat Summer, though, extends beyond this moment. Like Hot Girl Summer, the meme that sprung up in 2019 around Megan Thee Stallion’s song of the same name, Brat Summer has moved past Charli XCX’s album Brat to become an embodiment of the vibe of the season in 2024. For Charli, it’s about—and this is what Tapper was trying to understand—being a little messy, a little volatile, a little vulnerable. But also honest. It’s about crying in the club, but also about crying over the state of the world in a ridiculous outfit with the top down. It is, in its way, anti-defeatist.
This was posted almost a month ago, with millions of views across all social media platforms.
And it’s official.
I am Jake Tapper.
Just dance.
