On Sunday, Kamala Harris earned an unexpected but perhaps paramount endorsem*nt with Gen Z voters: pop star Charli XCX.
“Kamala IS brat” the 31-year-old British singer wrote in a tweet, acknowledging she had seen TikTok and Twitter edits of Harris superimposed to pop songs from Charli XCX’s hit album “Brat.”
The endorsem*nt was the latest in a social media frenzy over Harris. Since early July, Gen Z Harris supporters have rallied around the vice president through memes. Fans have put green filters on profile photos or added coconut and palm tree emojis to social media handles.
Here's how Harris, coconut trees and "Brat Summer" became connected.
What is the origin of the coconut tree meme? It exists in the context.
The emojis and memes refer to a Harris quote: “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”
Those words, uttered at a swearing-in ceremony of a White House initiative on advancing opportunity for Hispanic people last May, became the basis for a slew of memes originating in left-leaning Gen Z circles.
Supporters said they loved the speech and similar moments because of Harris' reliability and quirkiness. Emma Mont, one of the administrators of Organizer Memes, which regularly posts about politics with a progressive slant and trains groups on how to utilize memes, told the Journal Sentinel Republicans are in "for a sorry surprise when they try and weaponize her kookiness."
“It's so hard to make fun of Kamala Harris because anything that they would kind of try and use against her, we have already claimed as this thing we love,” said Mont. “They're in for a sorry surprise when they try and weaponize her kookiness, and we're like, ‘yeah, and? that's why we love her.’”
In fact, the coconut tree speech's popularity originated in GOP circles. Accounts includingRNC Research and GOP War Roomboth posted clips of the remarks last May.
One video of the speech edited with a Charli XCX song took the meme to a new level
The discourse inspired 22-year-old Ryan Long. He scoured the internet for Harris’ most kooky, awkward, and above all, meme-worthy moments, like when she proclaimed, “I love Venn diagrams” during an event about abortion rights, sang "Wheels on the Bus" out of tune or enthusiastically danced with a children’s marching band. The resulting 2-minute hype reel of Harris superimposed “Brat” imagery to the soundtrack of the song “Von Dutch.”
“I'm very online, so when I started to see a lot of people talking about Kamala, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, no one is doing these edits justice,’ and I really like the 'Brat' album,” Long said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel, adding that he tried to use moments where Harris was laughing to show the “fun, joking side” of her personality."
He said the edit has racked up more than 40 million views across different platforms and reposts.
“If Kamala Harris becomes president it’s bc of this edit,” one person tweeted in response. “I’m not kidding I think the coconut meme might legitimately lead to a record high gen z turn out,” read another Tweet. Someone else said, “Project coconut is a go.”
Coconut memes collide with 'Brat Summer'
For those who aren’t chronically online, the term “Brat Summer” originated with Charli XCX’s June 7 release of “Brat.” The album is packed with shimmery vocals and a reverb-heavy base reminiscent of the bangers blasted from club speakers in 2010. As the Atlantic wrote, Charli XCX "crystallized a cultural mood: Seeming a little immature, a little selfish, a littlenasty, has taken on an air of glamour." Large swathes of Gen Z have declared it the unofficial album of the summer and embraced its radioactive lime green album color and subsequent Tik Tok dances. It's pronounced brat as in Bratz dolls, as opposed to the sausages that are popular in Wisconsin.
Charli XCX expanded on the meaning in a Tik Tok.
“The acknowledgment of ‘Brat Summer’ and something that is so popular in youth culture is going to re-excite people who felt like they were being left out of the conversation because now they see themselves in the conversation," Mont said.
After President Joe Biden officially dropped out of the race Sunday, people had thoughts on Twitter. Users created video edits to songs like RuPaul's “Call Me Mother” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us." Jokes drew comparisons between HBO show “Veep”’s Selina Meyer and Harris. A Washington, D.C., bar put out an advertisem*nt for $5 pina Kamala coconut shots.
Politicians got in on the action too. After Biden endorsed Harris on Sunday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis simply tweeted out a coconut, palm tree and American flag emoji. Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz posted a photo of him climbing a coconut tree with the caption, “Madam Vice President, we are ready to help.”
Her campaign took notice, and on Sunday night rebranded its Twitter to “Kamala hq” with a Brat-inspired banner image and bio that read “providing context.”
How social media and celebrity endorsem*nts could help connect Harris to youth voters
The meme frenzy comes as both parties seek to make inroads with younger voters, who are increasingly turning to social media for their news. The Republican and Democratic National Conventions both made plans to hire influencers this year.
It used to be that mainstream news media would develop narratives about who candidates were, and those narratives shaped attitudes about the candidates. But social media has upended that model, according to Michael Wagner, a professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We have two candidates who use social media well, but in different ways: Trump uses it to get attention. Harris uses it to shape attitudes," Wagner said.
He said it would be “going too far” to draw an immediate correlation between the memes and vote choice. Politically active Twitter users who make up a small but vocal portion of the site, may not be representative of the general electorate.
The most important thing celebrities or social media influencers can do is drive their audiences to pay attention to the conversation.
“That is a huge first step to getting people interested and involved in political campaigns, especially in an era where so many young people are rejecting the two major parties and are not feeling represented by the American political institutions,” Wagner said. Given the shortened election cycle, those impressions and narratives could be “more consequential” than in past years.
