TOLEDO, Ohio — What started as a studio album from a British singer has taken on a whole new meaning in the United States, thanks to an internet sub-culture and marketing tactics geared toward Gen Z.
"Brat," the sixth studio album by Charli XCX, dropped on June 7, 2024, and steadily amassed a cult following on the internet.
Dubbing the term "brat summer," the album and its music encapsulate the messy parts of womanhood, like relationships, edgy fun, partying and being unapologetically yourself. Social media platforms praised the album, creating dances to the music and claiming the album aided in the resurgence of "recession pop."
But political pundits brought a whole new meaning to the phrase "brat summer" following Vice President Kamala Harris' run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
Mere hours after President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping his bid for reelection, Harris' campaign team made major changes in how the party would market the probable nominee, heavily gearing its social presence toward Gen Z voters. The turn marked changes seemingly unprecedented for political figures, toeing the line between the unhinged humor of many Gen Z internet dwellers and cringe culture.
Harris' campaign embraced the format of many rising pop stars, dubbing her social platforms as KamalaHQ, like many music artists popular with the younger voting pool that the Democratic party is looking to attract. KamalaHQ embraces the aesthetic of Charli XCX, even securing notice from the star herself. The singer posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, "kamala IS brat."
Gen Z quickly took notice of the change in campaigning tactics and rushed to the internet with their own thoughts and opinions. Overwhelmingly, Gen Z commented on the Harris campaign's notice of potential voters in their demographic, a trend seen as reinvigorating after the anxieties brought about by President Biden's campaign run.
Other tactics emerged, such as embracing trends on TikTok to songs like "Feminenominon" by Chappell Roan and reinventing Harris' famous speech about coconut trees, which was a topic of criticism for the potential candidate before her rebrand.
Outside of the Harris campaign, internet users began developing their own commentary and vocabulary about the campaign, like "KHive" (a play on Beyoncé stans, who call themselves the BeyHive), "kaMALA" (Keep America Laughing Again) and blowing up the phrase "in the context of" as a common colloquialism for Gen Z-ers.
According to the Associated Press, other political leaders within Harris' party are also embracing her new latch to young voters, with many posting coconut tree-inspired endorsements of the vice president.
The Harris campaign's ability to embrace risky humor by Gen Z can be compared to Hillary Clinton's famous line "Pokémon Go to the polls," but heads a distinct difference in the eyes of many possible voters: the human aspect of being unapologetically an unabashedly yourself, which is what brat summer is all about.