You know Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee. Earlier this summer, though, you might have seen Harris as something else.
Hours after President Biden stepped aside and Harris made her bid for the 2024 presidential campaign, pop star Charli XCX shared her support by posting “kamala IS brat” on X, formerly Twitter.
“Brat” refers to the title of Charli XCX’s sixth studio album: a gritty, vulnerable record that received critical acclaim after its June debut. “Brat summer” also became the latest cool-girl aesthetic embodying carefree, bold and unapologetic attitudes.
The English singer’s three-word declaration garnered nine million clicks in just four hours. At the time of this article’s publication, the post has surpassed 56 million views.
Harris’ official campaign Twitter page seized the momentum of perhaps her “most culturally powerful endorsement” in changing its background to a lime green, low-resolution photo with the words “kamala hq” in the iconographic lowercase arial font.
Kamala HQ’s Twitter bio simply reads, “Providing context,” a nod to the meme-ified statement, “You exist in the context in all in which you live and what came before you.”
Kamala HQ TikTok content pivoted to reach a younger audience, becoming replete with trendy references and viral sounds. Post-brat-identifying, Harris’s campaign page featured CapCut-esque edits akin to film fan account montages, a video of Trump condemning video games’ culture of violence captioned “We really got a Trump video game ban before gta 6″ and a dolphin symphony meme that critiques Project 2025.
If you’re not chronically online, you probably don’t fully understand the intended meaning or appeal of the three TikToks above. It may seem bizarre and impractical to push social media trends and cultural movements via an official presidential campaign page.
At first glance, the two fields are disparate and disconnected: politics seem grounded in reality, and pop culture seems like an escape from reality. However, pop culture and politics have a special relationship worth examining.
Pop culture has always been an amplifier of the state of the world. Whichever creative media an artist channels, the product is a statement — often about life or the self.
Harris is only the latest politician to reconcile these two worlds. Several politicians — including former U.S. presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama — have utilized late-night talk shows, SNL appearances and associations with celebrities to curate or redefine their specific personas. These public appearances democratize and make politics more accessible to an average American, beyond the limiting scope of a legislative debate or political convention.
Some politics-pop culture dances were effectively executed. On the Arsenio Hall Show, 1992 presidential candidate Bill Clinton belted Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” on the saxophone in dark sunglasses, setting him up to look uniquely (and relatively) cool in front of the primary audience of the late-night show: young voters from urban cities.
Clinton went on to win the election that November. By no means was his guest appearance the deciding factor for voters, but his performance certainly didn’t hurt.
Sometimes the merging doesn’t always work, though, and pop culture does not match political intentions. For example, 2016 presidential Hillary Clinton attempted to appeal to the youth vote when she said at one of her rallies, “Pokémon GO to the polls,” hoping to connect the mobile game craze with an urge for young voters to show up at the polls.
That sentence awkwardly floated out there, unattached to any other cultural conversation, as she smiled and nodded knowingly, waiting for the young voters in her audience to get it. The issue was that her statement was abrupt and isolated, and you couldn’t buy the image of Clinton downloading or opening any video game, much less one that requires a little bit of knowledge about augmented reality.
Harris has made sustained efforts to reach Gen Z, from speaking on the Call Her Daddy podcast to using Beyoncé as a walk-up song. Plus, there is already a huge visual contrast between Biden and Harris, as the former is older than hula hoops, frisbees and color TVs.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump emerged from pop culture, too. Before he was the 45th U.S. president, he was “The Apprentice” reality television celebrity, known for sitting sky-high above the Manhattan horizon and uttering, “You’re fired!”
The question remains, though: does this strategy resonate beyond an initial like and share?
“I don’t think that Charli XCX declaring Harris ‘brat’ has changed my opinion on the 2024 election,” said Sabeeh Mirza, a sophomore majoring in political economy. “I think that branding is helpful in generating voter turnout and interest, but I tend to focus on policies... the focus on branding and optics has led a lot of people to ignore specific policies that are being advocated for.”
Pop culture can intensify a political moment, but when it overshadows it, the message becomes muddled, and the balance between spectacle and substance is tricky to navigate or understand. Lime green and babydoll tees aren’t solutions to national debates.
If you’re a member of Gen Z, you may like, recognize and laugh at the visuals, the sounds and the humor of Harris’s newfound brand.
But if you’re a member of Gen Z and a first-time voter, it’s important to interrogate and dig deeper into the brand that politicians are selling to you.