Six hours after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Charli XCX, a British singer and songwriter, tweeted “Kamala IS brat” with over 54 million views. Inspired by her latest summer hit album, “Brat,” the phrase signifies a “girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes,” as described by Charli XCX on TikTok.
After Charli XCX’s endorsement of Harris’ run in the presidential race, Harris’ social media team changed @kamalahq’s banner on X to the same font and color as the cover of “Brat.” After the Sept. 10 presidential debate between Harris and Trump, Taylor Swift, a popular artist, endorsed Harris for presidency. Immediately after, Harris’ social media team tweeted a picture of Swift’s post along with the caption, “Ready for it”, in reference to Swift’s 2017 song. Harris’ social media team has embraced all memes, using pop culture and music such as the song “Femininomenon” by artist Chappell Roan to highlight Harris as a woman of color.
“[Social media] would give her a way to communicate her message in creative, short ways that are catchy and will appeal to voters,” said advanced standing world history teacher Jon Felder. “A lot of voters aren’t that interested in politics, they’re just being told that they should vote … [and] they might not want to read long articles.”
Following that, countless memes, sound bite remixes and edited videos erupted and took over the internet. One of the most viral ones came from a speech that Harris gave in May 2023, where she quoted her mother’s saying.
“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” Harris said. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”
Since then, politicians who supported Harris have tweeted the emojis of coconut trees or called her campaign “Operation Coconut Tree.” Among them, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii even posted a picture of him climbing a coconut tree.
“[Gen-Z] could have taken anything she said once Biden dropped out [and] they could have found any audio and made it viral,” said senior Adrienne Nguyen. “But [the coconut tree] was a golden one.”
Harris’ speech now has over 18,000 videos that use her laughing coconut tree speech as an audio. The day that Biden dropped out of the presidential race 10,554 posts were made about Harris’ coconut tree speech.
Harris’ and Walz’s campaigns aim to target the younger generations through memes and vibes.
“18 to 25-year-olds have the worst voting record of every age group,” said history and economics teacher Kevin Nelson. “Traditionally, they don’t feel like they matter [so] they’re not engaged. Whenever a political party is able to identify what gets that group motivated and come out to vote, they’re going to go after that.”
According to CNN, more than 230,000 people signed up to vote after Biden dropped out – 81% of whom are between 18 to 34-years-old.
“I think [social media is] very influential, especially with young voters, because that’s all we’re doing,” Nguyen said. “Gen Z was feeling okay about Kamala Harris, and then she decided to make a TikTok account, and now it’s going crazy and everybody loves her.”
With the power of social media being well known and influential, especially to younger generations, it has had a history of impacting elections.
“[Social media has] been affecting elections very similarly ever since Trump started,” said senior Thomas Williams. “He sort of set in motion an era where the internet and cult of personality dictate whether you get elected or not. It’s become more of a reality TV show because of social media.”
In addition, news outlets have previously criticized Harris for having vague policies in her campaign as her strategy. Because of this, many feel that the vibes of this election have overshadowed factors such as policy.
“We are in the midst of playing to the emotions of individuals rather than the practicalities of issues [and] construction of ideas of what we believe is important to the people,” Nelson said.
While social media has proven itself to be influential in people’s perception of the election, it is only one of many factors that will impact the final results on Nov. 5.
