Meme queen? What coconut trees and lime green mean for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign
Welcome to the coconut era, Demo-brats.
When President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to go up against former President Donald Trump, coconut emojis and lime-green cover art exploded across online memes, clips and even in-person support on Capitol Hill.
Charli XCX, whose new album kickstarted “brat summer,” said on X Sunday that “kamala IS brat,” a powerful compliment for fans who are chronically online. Even before the British pop singer declared Harris’ status, social media users had remixed a now-iconic quote into “Brat” album song clips.
“That’s how it started for me,” said Samiha Rahman, 26, who lives in Michigan, a swing state. “And I was like, Yes, Kamala is brat. She is our brat.”
Brat, as a result of Charli XCX’s album, has become a pop culture trend this summer.
Remixes, dance videos and coconut tree references snowballed exponentially starting Sunday, raising Harris’ profile as a Gen Z Meme Queen.
Harris’ campaign has embraced the brat aesthetic on X for Kamala HQ, which more than doubled its follower count since rebranding from the Biden account on Sunday. It now has over a million followers. The campaign uses the same name on Instagram and TikTok.
Leaning into Internet culture could be a way to entice young voters to turn out for Harris, the likely Democratic nominee who was a San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general and U.S. senator before becoming vice president in 2021.
“This sort of entryway of, ‘oh, yeah, I know Kamala Harris from this meme. I’m going to be a little bit more inclined to hear her out when she’s talking about climate change or student loan debt,’” said Kevin Liao, 32, a Democratic strategist based in Los Angeles. “I think that’s the sort of opportunity here.”
“We saw some analyses of TikTok, it was overwhelmingly being flooded by pro-MAGA content,” Liao said in an interview Tuesday of the social media platform before Harris took over from Biden. “So this allows Democrats something to combat that, something to give an entryway to talk to these younger voters.” Ardent Trump supporters embrace MAGA, which stands for Make American Great Again.
What some have criticized the vice president for — including clips the Republican National Committee Research account pulled to use against Harris but Democrats reclaimed — some young voters have found endearing.
“this is a Kamala Harris fan account and you can’t tell me otherwise,” wrote Annie Wu Henry, the “TikTok Whisperer” for Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., in his 2022 campaign, referencing RNC Research.
It’s unclear now whether the #KHive online fandom — a reference to Beyonce’s “BeyHive” followers which started when Harris was a senator — will lead young voters to show up in November.
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Rahman had been unenthused about the 2024 election between Biden, 81, and Trump, 78. She plans to turn out for Harris, 59.
“I feel more hopeful. She is very talented,” Rahman said in an interview Tuesday. “From all the stuff that I’ve seen on TikTok, that made me want to look her up.”
“Providing context” on brat, coconut trees and Harris:
Brat
Brat summer comes from Charli XCX’s new album, featuring club-banger-esque music with lime (more like slime) green cover art. Brat summer is a form of “girl summer,” such as “hot girl summer.”
The singer posted about what brat means on TikTok: “That girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says dumb things sometimes, who feels herself but then also maybe has a breakdown, but parties through it. It’s very honest. It’s very blunt. A little bit volatile, does dumb things. But like, it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.”
While Harris, a former prosecutor, does not really fit that description, the aesthetic could play well for the campaign to be the first woman of color to have a major-party presidential nomination. Harris is the daughter of immigrants; her father is from Jamaica and her mother is from India.
Coconut trees
In May 2023, Harris gave a speech at an event for the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics.
She referenced a quote from her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who died in 2009. Harris’ mother immigrated to the U.S. from Madras, now Chennai, India, at age 19.
“My mother used to, she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” Harris said, laughing. “‘You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.’”
It’s led Harris supporters to use coconut and palm tree emojis on their social media accounts, claim being “coconut-pilled” and post the quote in remixes of songs (such as Charli XCX’s “360”), videos and memes.
A clip of her quote was pulled by the RNC Research X account, attempting to poke fun at Harris in May 2023. Gen Z supporters reclaimed it.
“Republicans were laughing at her because of what she said and I think we’re taking that and embracing it,” Rahman said. “Like, yeah, she’s kind of funny. We like that, we like that about her.”
This story was originally published July 24, 2024 at 10:59 AM.
