Within a day of Kamala Harris announcing her candidacy for the US presidency, her campaign account on X, KamalaHQ, had surpassed 500,000 followers.
Could her account’s header image — a deliberately low-res image of the word “kamala hq” splayed against a lime-green background — have something to do with the surge in online support for Harris?
The campaign’s rebranding mimics the cover art of British singer Charlie XCX’s latest album, “brat.” The rebranding comes on the heels of Charlie XCX’s own endorsement of VP Harris in a three-word X post that rocked cyberspace on Monday and was quickly appropriated by the Harris campaign as “Kamala is a brat.”
What is brat?
Brat is Charlie’s sixth studio album and was released on June 7th.
On the album, Charli unpacks femininity, jealousy, generational trauma, confidence and vulnerability across 15 upbeat hyper-pop tracks. It offers a laid-back, nostalgic synth-pop experience and also features other successful female artists, including Italian-American model Julia Fox and New Zealand singer Lorde.
The album cover is a bright green rectangle with the word “brat” written in a simple, low-resolution font.
Brat – This Summer. 15 songs. 41 minutes 23 seconds. Repeat. https://t.co/JHsLbjO049 pic.twitter.com/cLh1vInL9Z
— Charlie (@charli_xcx) February 28, 2024
In an interview on TikTok, Charli described Gaki as a “girl who’s a little bit messy, likes to party, and sometimes says stupid things.” It’s a sentiment that resonates with many.
Cheeky Summer
Her album did well, reaching number three on the Billboard 200 chart at one point, and one of its tracks, “360,” has been streamed more than 93 million times on Spotify. The album’s success has led some critics to call it the “Brat Summer,” and hundreds of thousands of TikTok videos have been posted featuring songs from the album.
The “brat” concept has become a huge internet craze, with many online users plagiarizing her album cover style and writing humorous or ridiculous messages on a bright green, or “brat-green,” background.
Bratwurst summer starts with bratwurst and turns to all things bright and leafy.
…To the late Queen Elizabeth:
So how is Harris planning to enjoy his summer vacation?
The Harris campaign is capitalizing on the summer trend of “sassy kids” with no holds barred.
of Kamala HQ Your account now has over 800,000 followers and is close to hitting 1 million. Let’s get started! pic.twitter.com/qMYVn1BOtV
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) July 22, 2024
On Monday, the campaign’s burgeoning X account announced the creation of an Instagram campaign page, “kamalahq.” The Instagram account’s pinned post is a carousel of photos that includes screenshots of Charlie’s tweets and a green rectangle that reads, “Welcome to kamalahq HQ. This is the official breaking news page for VP Harris’ presidential campaign.”
The post was captioned, “And if I put this to bed the internet will go crazy,” a reference to a song from her highly confusing album, Girl, which went viral after Charlie released a version featuring Lorde.
The Harris campaign has also used trending music from other artists: A TikTok account posted a carousel of videos of “Femininominon,” a song by American singer Chapelle Roan, 26, which combines the words “feminine” and “phenomenon.”
Why is Charlie’s endorsement of Harris important?
Charlie’s audience is young, a demographic that Harris desperately needs to cultivate.
Until President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, many American voters had resented the prospect of continued gerontocracy as they decided whether to cast their ballots for the 81-year-old Biden or former President Donald Trump, 78.
A February BBC/Ipsos poll found that 59% of US voters believe both Biden and Trump are too old to serve another term in office, with 27% of respondents saying the same about Biden but not about Trump.
Democrats appear to be struggling especially: A CNN poll from April showed Biden trailing Trump by 11 percentage points among voters ages 18 to 34.
Biden’s recent string of public gaffes and disastrous performance in a debate with Trump, in which he appeared to lose his train of thought, have made the situation worse.
Harris, 59, is widely expected to win the Democratic presidential nomination and would be the younger of the two candidates to challenge Trump.
The impact that this single tweet had on young people’s votes cannot be small. https://t.co/VyQQVZnKmE
— David Hogg 🟧 (@davidhogg111) July 22, 2024
Who is Charli XCX?
Charlotte Emma Acheson, professionally known as Charlie XCX, is a 31-year-old British singer-songwriter. Her mother is from a Gujarati Indian family and was born in Uganda. Her father is Scottish.
She began experimenting with music and posting her own songs on the popular social networking site, MySpace, in the early 2000s.
Charlie rose to fame around 2014 when he collaborated with Australian rapper Iggy Azalea on the song “Fancy”, one of the best-selling singles of the year. In the same year, Charlie wrote the song “Boom Clap” for the soundtrack of the film The Fault in Our Stars.
Charlie keeps a mostly politically-neutral side on social media and doesn’t comment on world affairs or politicians, but about two months ago the singer shared a donation link to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund on Instagram.
How have people responded to Charlie’s support?
Charlie’s endorsement of Harris spawned a series of supportive memes.
One user posted an edit featuring several of Harris’ video clips and a remix of the brat track “Von Dutch.”
Why I stayed up until 3am making a Von Dutch Brat Coconut Tree edit featuring Kamala Harris, and why I can’t stop watching it on repeat pic.twitter.com/hqcmerD1Pb
— Ryan (@ryanlong03) July 3, 2024
But others expressed disappointment and indignation at Charlie’s support, citing Harris’ support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.
https://t.co/gKxgzqZjxz pic.twitter.com/8rjAHiinSX
— Junebug (@swirlgirlxo) July 22, 2024
What other memes are related to Harris?
The first meme to symbolize Harris’ presidential run was the “coconut tree” meme, which Harris used in a speech last year to reference something her mother said to her as a child.
“My mother would sometimes get us in trouble and say, ‘You young people, I don’t know what’s wrong. Do you think you just fell off a coconut tree? You exist in the context of everything you’re living in and everything that was before you,'” Harris said.
Soon, photos of coconut trees and emojis of coconuts and palm trees started circulating on the internet.
Coconut Tree Nation is happening, let’s go pic.twitter.com/bl1KIYQuWD
— Rasmus (@rasmusbravado) July 21, 2024
