A post on X by English songwriter Charli XCX — “kamala IS brat (sic)” — might be US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s most potent endorsement yet. Since it was posted on July 22, the tweet has garnered 333.6 thousand likes and 42.5 thousand reposts, with Kamala herself leaning on the Gen Z-approved compliment. The cover picture of Harris’s campaign account @KamalaHQ proudly displayed the words ‘kamala is a brat’ against a sickly lime green background, an aesthetic curiously similar to the cover of Brat, the sixth studio album of Charli XCX. kamala IS brat — Charli (@charli_xcx) July 22, 2024 A slew of memes and social media posts have since flooded the Internet, with keywords such as ‘GenZ feels the Kamalove’, ‘Brats for Harris’ and ‘It’s a Kamalanomenon’ trending across social media. On July 26, 17 youth groups announced their united support for Harris’ presidential campaign. Here is all you need to know about Charli XCX, the ‘brat summer’ trend, and what all this means for Kamala Harris’s image as a youth leader. Who is Charli XCX? Charlotte Emma Aitchison aka Charli XCX, is an English pop-punk singer-songwriter from Essex. Known for her raw and relentless music and lyrical content, the 32-year-old artist owes a lot of her image to the rave culture of London, where she used to perform in 2008. Her most famous songs include Hot Girl, Roll With Me, Boys, Nuclear Seasons, Track 10 and Vroom Vroom. Apart from winning the ASCAP Global Impact Award in 2024 for her contributions to pop music, Charli has also co-written songs for several popular artists. These include Iggy Azalea's Beg for It, Selena Gomez's Same Old Love, Blondie's Tonight, Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello’s Señorita, and the Sigala and Rita Ora collaboration You for Me. What is the ‘brat summer’ trend? Brat, the most critically acclaimed Charli XCX album which came out in June, is taking over the Internet, with around a million posts on TikTok. Several businesses and thousands of individuals are using the ‘brat aesthetic’ — lime-green background with a particular font type — in their posts, akin to the Brat’s album cover. In BBC’s Sidetracked podcast, Charli describes a brat as someone with “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra”. In a TikTok the artist made, she describes brat as “You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. 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.” Why is Kamala a ‘brat’? A brat summer, like the ‘hot-girl summer’ trend of the past, seems like it is about doing whatever makes you feel good. This is in congruence with Harris’s image of an unapologetic funny political leader who doesn’t shy away from doing a little jig every once in a while. Several memes that have been doing the rounds of the Internet revolve around the Democrat leader’s comments made on public forums. Harris has professed her love for Venn diagrams, talked about her mother saying ‘she fell out of a coconut tree’, and given her personal turkey-cooking instructions, all in a jolly, playful, and highly relatable manner. This is why ‘Kamala IS brat’ — for her supporters, she breaks the conventions of what American political leaders look and behave like. With a hotly-contested election against Donald Trump beckoning, Harris will only further lay into the ‘brat girl’ image, cashing in on the viral cultural phenomenon to woo young voters.
