Brat summer — the chartreuse phenomenon sparked by Charli XCX’s album that’s the same title but there’s a season in it so it’s not — has reached presidential levels of virality. Stuck with a historic campaign adamant about aligning itself with 365 party girls, cable-news anchors have no choice but to decipher the meme.
Earlier this week, Joe Biden dropped out of the White House race in an attempt to save Democrats from a 3-1 deficit in the election-year finals following his debate performance, paving an $81 million road to Kamala Harris becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee. (Sorry for the sports reference — I’ve been really into the WNBA lately. Go, Ellie!) In the hours following the veep’s elevation to presidential nominee on July 21, her staff took it upon themselves to embrace the brat memes by refashioning the campaign account’s Twitter layout to resemble the album-cover aesthetic of lo-fi black text superimposed on a noxious-green background.
Endorsed by Harris, cable news had a journalistic obligation to explain what the hell brat and brat summer are. CNN’s Jake Tapper couldn’t quite grasp what brat could even mean on July 22, wondering if everyone had brat potential. “I don’t know if you’re ‘brat.’ I think you aspire to be brat — you don’t just become brat! You have to try,†replied anchor Kaitlan Collins. Fellow panelist Jamie Gangel read Charli’s own explanation of the term: “‘You’re just that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes,’†she read, her voice a little skeptical. On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow couldn’t quite grasp what being brat means. “To be totally honest with you, I’m not really sure I know what that means,†she joked, playing the brat–coconut-tree mash-up.
The green takeover was inspired by fan-cams that emerged in the listless days following Biden’s debate fumble. Democrats and shitposters alike began rallying around Harris and her kookiness in an effort to stop worrying and love the prospect of Biden dropping out. In quick succession, they posted edit upon edit of Harris’s coconut-tree speech remixed into Charli XCX songs, among others. Charli, for her part, welcomed the Harris campaign. “Kamala IS brat,†she tweeted on July 21.
All right, fun’s over! With Harris being brat and pundits discussing it live on-air, the meme has reached nuclear levels of institutional saturation and can no longer be funny. Just some weeks ago, I was dancing at a Market Hotel–hosted brat-themed party with my lime-green handbag and some substances, watching the J train make stops at the Myrtle Avenue–Broadway station and sweating through my low-rise miniskirt because the dew point was dangerously high in that sauna, being an overgrown 20-something clubrat. That was brat summer. All these anchors explaining it on-air and politicians embracing it is the final nail in the coffin. RIP, brat summer (June 7–July 21, 2024). She’s going out to meet her sister, the brat wall, in Heaven.