"kamala IS brat"
Kamala Harris's online persona was turned around by viral moments, largely buoyed by LGBTQ and Gen-Z users. Can that momentum carry over to the campaign trail?
Hours after President Biden announced that he would be dropping out of the 2024 race and endorsing his Vice President, Kamala Harris, in the November election, Harris received another endorsement that would change the tone of the political conversation: from singer Charli XCX.
“kamala IS brat,” Charli XCX tweeted. The British singer was referencing her sixth album and the aesthetic that has swept social media since it was released in June.
“brat,” to music critics, was a rejection of the “clean girl aesthetic.” If 2023 was the year of Barbie pink, 2024 would be bright green and soft-focus Arial text. Charli described being brat:
“You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things some times… 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.”
In other words, it was a compliment.
And her endorsement of Harris was the cherry-on-top moment of a tidal wave that had taken over social media in recent weeks.
Ever since President Biden’s disastrous debate appearance in June, social media users on the Left began speculating about what it would look like with Kamala Harris on the top of the ticket.
Before that, the Kamala Harris enthusiasm online was mild, at best.
We’ve all heard the coconut tree phrase, by this point. But for those of you not chronically online, she’s quoting her mother:
“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” Harris says, interrupting herself with the big, Kamala-characteristic laugh. But then she seems to catch herself, and bring the moment full-circle. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”
That moment, before the debate, did not carry the same weight it does now. It was sometimes clipped and missing context. It was mocked widely by both those on the left and the right.
In January, another video went viral. Vice President Harris greeted Colorado Senator Michael Bennet by matching his deep voice. This brief moment of personality was called “unserious.” “Kamala Harris is the first silly goose to be elected Vice President” another X user reacted. Others thought it could’ve been scripted in Veep. She’s been compared to Veep’s Selina Meyer and Parks and Rec’s Leslie Knope countless times.
But at the same time, questionable pictures and videos of her running mate, President Joe Biden also began to go viral. Those moments were darker: him stumbling over his words, him stumbling over the steps of Air Force One. There were scenes where he seemed to forget where he was and others were he needed to be redirected to the action. Whether edited or out-of-context, the online perception of the oldest president in American history was beginning to take shape. But the CNN Presidential Debate marked an inflection point. Americans saw a fuller example of what they believed they saw online. While calls grew for him to step aside, Biden dug in his heels, referenced some polls favoring him, and blamed it on a “bad night” and a “cold.” Democratic donors seemed split on whether to back him or take a pause. Media and political critics had wondered whether Vice President Harris could go face off and win against Trump.
There slowly seemed to be a reckoning happening online: maybe there was something more to this coconut tree.
Three and a half weeks later, Biden endorsed Kamala and social media became a Harris oasis, filled with green palm & coconut. The fans’ enthusiasm took on many forms: Harris’s face photoshopped onto iconic divas; Supercuts made of her dancing, with Charli XCX music in the background and the bright green backdrop spliced in. One user posted on X: "if kamala harris becomes president it’s bc of this edit.”
Kamala’s campaign quickly embraced the endorsement and jumped into action. The official Kamala Harris HQ twitter account made their banner full-out brat. CNN anchors tried their best to define “brat” while acknowledging it was another language that they did not understand.
In the gay enclave of Fire Island Pines, a group of friends celebrated while wearing politically prescient outfits. They showed up to Sunday tea, the daily high event where the entire island turns out for happy hour, wearing brat-green kamala crop tops.
The shirts were the Kamala 2024 social media fervor brought to life. It was the epitome of “brat summer;” it was “kamala IS brat” incarnate. But can that momentum translate to the campaign trail and ultimately, the ballot box?
Initial reports point to, yes, Democratic voters are getting politically activated offline as well. Hours after Biden dropped out of the race, a grass-roots Zoom call was organized by Black women who wanted to get involved. After filling the 1,000 seats in the virtual conference room, the leaders reached out to Zoom and expanded the capacity. More than 44,000 people logged in. That group raised more than $1.5 million that night.
Bakari Sellers, the former politician and CNN commentator was inspired. He set up a similar conference aimed at Black men the following night. More than 53,000 people joined the video call.
In the first 24 hours, the new Harris campaign, which barely had time to print new posters, had smashed fundraising records and brought in a whopping $81 million dollars.
“You can't deny that there is excitement. You can't deny that this infused a little bit of life into the party,” says one former senior staff member on Harris’s 2020 presidential campaign. “But we are 100 days out from the election. That is not a lot of time.”
In those one hundred days, Harris will have to win over the rest of her party, both elected officials and average voters, the former staffer says. To do that, she will need to introduce and re-introduce herself. She’ll have to travel and shake hands in key, swing counties in the states where the race was already neck and neck. She’ll need to continue to build out her campaign and have staff and volunteers door-knock to Americans that might not be interested in heading to the polls.
“You need money to communicate and it’s not cheap to do that.”
But this former campaign director identified something else. What this momentum did, from online to grassroots activations, was “unstick” big money.
Mega-donors took a pause in donating to the Democratic party when they became uninspired by Joe Biden. Abigail Disney, for example, said she wouldn’t contribute to the party until he dropped out and then reversed the position within 24 hours of him doing so.
“Biden passing the torch is very helpful for the money. People stopped donating and they weren’t going to keep going until he did that.”
The momentum online, in the campaign coffers, and on the trail, are necessary for a successful election, according to the former Harris campaign director.
“Having a candidate who is able to excite those younger people is great,” she said “And even older voters have some interest in electing candidates that they think young people can be excited about.”
“Online momentum does translate to actual electoral momentum and campaign momentum… it becomes a feedback loop and all of it contributes to the excitement around this new candidacy.”
The social media influencer petshopboy is known for the way he invokes videos, memes and text to comment on the happenings of the day: A ridiculous political moment in Washington could be summed up by a clip of New Jersey Housewife Teresa Giudice sighing with exasperation on a swing. Or he could react to a reality TV “told-you-so” by using a clip of Whitney Houston raising her chin to the camera. His 42,000 followers know to expect near real-time, smart, funny commentary on all issues from Bravo to Capitol Hill.
He too noticed the shift in excitement around Harris that had been happening online. He called it “serendipitous.”
“It’s something that can only happen in this moment in time because of the unique circumstances surrounding her entry into this race,” petshopboy added.
(“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” I thought to myself. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”)
When Biden endorsed Harris that Sunday night petshopboy took to instagram story with simple text:
“I hope everyone really takes time tonight and sits with the fact that we were just given a huge political lifeline. A miracle… it’s going to be a fight, but this is not all on one woman. If you’re gauging her value in this race right now, ask yourself what you’re doing to make sure she wins.”
For his part, he’d be co-hosting a dance party at a bar in New York City, alongside political strategist Brian Derrick, DJ Ty Sunderland and other social media influencers.
They announced the event just as Harris was accepting her party’s nomination to be at the top of the Democratic ticket.
“Coconuts for Kamala” sold out before midnight.