The Week of Brat Summer Will Go Down in Internet History

Jake Tapper looked as flummoxed as everyone else. After a week spent trying to figure out the whys and hows of the assassination attempt against former US president Donald Trump, the CNN anchor was now facing something far more perplexing: why a British pop singer was calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “brat.” As his panel on The Lead tried to explain, he eventually put it together: We’re all brat. What’s happened in the week since President Joe Biden announced he would not be seeking reelection and tapped his veep, Harris, as his pick for the nomination, the meme-ification of the presidential election in the US has gone from a cautious yellow to a neon, slimelike “Let’s go” green. Shortly after Biden made his announcement on Sunday, British pop star Charli XCX posted on X that “kamala IS brat” and solidified something that had been percolating for weeks. Ryan Long, a 22-year-old college student, made a fancam of Harris’ now infamous “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” remarks overlaid with the green Brat cover back in early July.