Beyond 'Brat': Kamala Harris and the New Memes of the 2024 Race

In the spring of 2023, Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech at a Washington, D.C. event celebrating efforts to advance opportunities for Hispanic Americans. While her actual remarks were pretty short, one moment from the speech has taken over the internet in the past few days.

As she explained the importance of providing opportunities not just to young people but to everyone around them, Harris shared something that her mother used to tell her:

“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 took a moment to laugh and then went on to explain what her mother meant: “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

This moment soon made its way to X (formerly Twitter) where it circulated for months in different meme pages — usually without the original context — where users resonated with Harris’ humor and the quirkiness of the “coconut tree” expression.

But the clip — now a meme — gained wider recognition this week when Harris became the likely Democratic nominee on Monday after receiving the support of enough party delegates to secure the nomination.

Unsurprisingly, right-leaning pages have used the clip, along with other videos that show Harris laughing, to argue that she shouldn’t be president. But many Democrats have embraced the coconut tree imagery and on TikTok and Instagram, young people are making viral videos that remix the coconut tree clip with songs from Charli XCX’s latest album, brat.

There’s already a plethora of explainers out there that try to explain the meaning behind the different coconut tree memes, along with what links Harris with Charli XCX in the first place. But in the spirit of the original speech that started it all, we wanted to understand the context of all in which these memes live in and what came before them.

I spoke with two other KQED journalists with deep experience in covering both politics and Gen Z culture — politics correspondent Marisa Lagos and host of The California Report Madi Bolaños — to talk about how the state of the 2024 race, Harris’ political trajectory and questions of both gender and race brought us some of these viral Harris memes.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Marisa, you’ve covered Kamala Harris for a long time. Does this image of Harris laughing at herself, being genuine in these moments, square up with what you’ve seen of her over the years?

Lagos: Totally. She, in my experience as a reporter, was at her best, off the record when she wasn’t having to think about what she was saying because she is legitimately funny and warm. And I think that’s a hard thing sometimes, especially as a woman of color.

Let’s put a very fine point on it: The reason that Republicans have used her laughing and her persona to attack her [comes with the] subtext that she’s not serious enough to be a leader. It’s very clearly pointed as a dog whistle at some of her identity.

On the flip side, that is what makes her a good politician. I have seen her in a room with people, and she’s really good at connecting, it’s retail politics.

But even for people like me who have covered her for two decades, this seems way more authentic than the “serious Kamala Harris buttoned-down” politician trope. And let’s be real, she has to push [that forward] in certain situations. It is a serious job.

Bolaños: Marisa, to your point that Republicans have used her laughter to argue that she’s not serious. That’s what Gen Z loves about her. The word right now for Gen Z is ‘unserious.’ … Gen Z is eating that up for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

They really are big fans of how carefree she is. It’s interesting that what they try to use against her is what’s working in her favor right now.

Let’s talk about “seriousness” more. Part of Donald Trump’s appeal to his supporters is that he does not behave like other politicians. He can say anything he wants and that makes him a man of the people. On the other hand, female politicians who have sought the presidency, like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, worked a lot on presenting themselves as very serious politicians to appeal to voters.

And now, we’re seeing certain voters respond positively to a female politician who embraces her humor and her more authentic self. Could we be seeing a shift in what’s expected of women in politics?

Lagos: I hope so. God, I hope so. I do think it’s too early to know because she’d have to win for that shift to really be realized.

If she can win, I do think that this opens new doors and avenues for female leaders to be themselves and not have to just fit in a box. What we’ve seen historically, I feel, is women being expected to act like men.

There’s women like Nancy Pelosi that have turned some of that on their head, especially just in the way she presents herself. She’s a very feminine person. And I think that in itself is unique because Kamala does not dress the way that Pelosi does. She’s been a prosecutor. She wore dark suits. That’s been her vibe.

She loosened it up on the campaign trail four years ago. She’s got that look with the blazer, jeans and Converse tennis shoes going on, which, I will say, is one of my looks when I’m out reporting. I tell people, “This is my Kamala look,” and they know what I mean.

Bolaños: Regardless if she wins or not, she is changing the culture of how you can present yourself in these spaces and also engaging a lot of people … who otherwise wouldn’t have cared very much.

My cousin who’s 18 and has never talked to me about politics randomly, no context, sent me a TikTok, featuring the Charli XCX song ‘Girl, so confusing version with lorde’ and it has different clips of Kamala and Hillary Clinton. And again, we do not talk about anything political, ever.

@flextillerson i hope they work it out on the remix #kamalaharris #kamala #brat #bratsummer #coconuttree #girlsoconfusing #lorde #hillaryclinton ♬ original sound – aly

Let’s talk about Charli XCX. There’s so many stories out there that try to explain why young people are making these TikToks remixing Harris clips with songs from brat. Madi, when journalists try to explain Gen Z humor, what do you think is missing?

Bolaños: I think that it’s hilarious to see older people try to understand something that is also kind of hard to explain. It’s one of those things that “if you know, you know.” It’s a vibe. You can’t explain a vibe online.

You have to be online all the time.

Bolaños: Exactly. When it’s coming from someone who just exists in that vibe, you’re already there. You don’t have to explain anything. You can just talk about it.

Whereas these older people are like 20, 50 chapters behind — they’re still trying to wrap their minds around what this can be — when the conversation could be so much more forward if everyone was just on the same page.

With that being said, even those conversations are being turned into memes and audio sounds. One conversation with a Fox News reporter, people are putting that on TikTok and saying, ‘this is kind of brat.’

@megagahubert the brats are so assembling. Lfg project coconut!!! 💚 #brat #kamala #harris2024 #kamalaharris #election #kamalahq ♬ brats run the world – megaga

This is also humor that takes the same thing and applies it to a different context, over and over again — which is very much a product of internet culture. And young people now have been online since elementary school.

@anatomyofafall this is what will flash before your eyes the moment right before you die #foryou #brat #trending #popculture #kamalaharris #biden #2024election ♬ coconut tree core – m🕺🎞️

Let’s stay on the topic of Charli XCX’s support for Harris. It’s been a while since celebrity endorsements made such a splash — the only other recent example is Taylor Swift endorsing Joe Biden in 2020. Celebrity endorsements were such a bigger deal in the 2000s and 2010s as we saw with both Obama campaigns. Marisa, how do celebrity endorsements usually play out for candidates?

Lagos: I think like anything in politics, the hope is: It can get you attention.

But it’s not enough to win, right? These things are far more complicated than that. And this isn’t going to be enough for Kamala Harris to win.

I think that there’s ways that you can take these pop culture references — endorsements, things like that — and play them out to engage people or to excite people. Maybe you were going to go vote for her anyway, but now you’re going to volunteer.

But it’s not ever going to be the silver bullet to winning the presidency. We have to remember that this is still going to be a race decided in a handful of states by a handful of people.

After Charli XCX sent out that tweet for Harris, we also had some folks react to this with some cringe:

We’re having fun right now with this politics-pop culture crossover — at the moment, it feels like a slay — but when does a slay become cringe?

Bolaños: I think that it becomes a cringe when they lean into it too hard. I think Hillary [Clinton] leaned into it way too hard. There’s a way to be a part of the joke without being in the group chat.

Kamala doing her thing and then having her campaign take these natural moments and make it into more memes, that’s what’s really working right now.

If she were to go online and say, “Hey, I’m brat,” that would get a little cringe. I don’t think she can acknowledge it too directly. She has to just keep doing what she’s doing, because that creates the memes itself.

@kqednewsYou’ve seen the memes, the fan edits, the internet discourse – Here’s a rundown of how the Internet rallied around Kamala Harris by getting to work making edits of Harris’s memorable moments set to songs from Charli XCX’s sixth album, Brat.♬ original sound – KQED News