Charli XCX’s Brat became a visible part of Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign conversation after fans paired Harris clips with the album’s music, Charli posted “kamala IS brat,” and the campaign adopted its lime-green visual style. The sequence shows how internet culture and campaign branding can meet; it does not establish that the memes changed votes or the election result.
What “brat summer” meant
Brat is Charli XCX’s album, released in June 2024. Its lime-green cover and club-pop identity gave fans a distinctive visual and musical reference to reuse online. In the coverage at the time, “brat” referred to an intentionally messy, self-assured party-girl persona associated with the album—not simply the word’s usual insult. That is an interpretation of the album’s aesthetic, not a universal definition. CBS News, ABC News
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How the meme reached the Harris campaign
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Fans started making the connection. After President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, people circulated edits pairing Harris footage with Brat tracks. ABC News reported that creator Ryan Long made one widely shared edit; it also described a broader stream of fan remixes. The coverage does not establish that these fans were coordinating as a campaign operation. ABC News, The Washington Post
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Charli XCX endorsed the association in a post. In July 2024, she wrote “kamala IS brat” on X. The phrase made the crossover especially visible, but it should not be treated as a statement that the album itself was a political work. In August, the Los Angeles Times reported Charli saying, “My music is not political.” Her viral post and her description of her music are separate statements. TIME, Los Angeles Times
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The campaign adopted the look. Harris’s campaign account, @KamalaHQ, used a lime-green banner styled after the album cover. That was a recognizable visual embrace of a moment fans had already helped circulate. CBS News, ABC News
Brat was one reference in a larger meme wave
The Brat edits appeared alongside other Harris-related online jokes and remixes, including clips built around her laugh and the “coconut tree” meme. That joke came from Harris quoting her mother at a 2023 event: “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” She continued, “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” The coconut-tree reference had a different origin from Brat, even when both appeared in the same online conversation. CBS News, ABC News
Some contemporary coverage interpreted the crossover as a way to meet younger audiences in online spaces. That is a reading of the campaign’s communication strategy, not proof that the approach persuaded a particular group of voters. TIME
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What the reported numbers show—and what they do not
News reports captured substantial circulation at particular moments in July 2024. These are dated snapshots, not current platform totals:
| Reported figure | What it referred to | Source and timing |
|---|---|---|
| 3.6 million views | Ryan Long’s Harris fan edit, as reported at publication | ABC News, July 22, 2024 |
| More than 2 million views and more than 500,000 likes | One popular Harris edit | CBS News, July 23, 2024 |
| More than 101 million views and 9,000 posts in the preceding seven days | The #kamalaharris tag on TikTok, according to the report | CBS News, July 23, 2024 |
Views and likes measure online circulation and interaction, not persuasion. The cited coverage documents fan enthusiasm and campaign adoption, but does not demonstrate that the memes converted voters, increased turnout, or affected the election result. The Guardian, The Washington Post
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