‘Brat summer’ and Venn diagrams: Kamala Harris’s campaign capitalizes on Gen-Z humor

Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has wasted no time courting young voters, quickly posting memes about Venn diagrams, “brat” summer and viral Harris quotes to appeal to Gen-Z’s sense of humor.

Hours after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election and endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee, “Kamala HQ” social media accounts emerged across multiple platforms and made their presence known.

On X, Harris’s team posted a Venn diagram to illustrate the similarities between her and Biden’s campaigns — a nod to a viral running joke about Harris’s vocal love for the diagram style.

Meanwhile, on TikTok, the Harris campaign posted a screenshot from popular artist Charli XCX endorsing the vice president and made their own version of Charli XCX’s lime-green album cover.

The artist’s recently released album, brat, has been on the Billboard 200™ chart for five weeks, with its popularity inspiring memes from fans declaring this season “brat summer” or creating their own versions of the neon-green album cover.

Even the “Kamala HQ” banner on X is now a version of the “brat” album cover.

Potential voters are already using the “brat” version of Harris’s campaign logo to show their support. A group of supporters were photographed over the weekend donning neon green T-shirts with “kamala” printed on them.

On social media, one fan’s “edit” of Harris, featuring a song by Charli XCX, went viral with more than 3.5 million views. An “edit” is a video compilation, usually made by a super-fan, that features images and videos of a celebrity of popular figure.

While it may seem silly, securing the votes of younger people — which helped Biden get elected in 2020 — will be critical to her campaign.

Though young voters lean more left than right, recent polling from The New York Times and Sienna College showed that voters between 18 and 29 years old were far less enthusiastic about voting for Biden this year than they were in 2020.

Approximately 40 percent of poll respondents said they believed Biden was too old to be an effective president.

But Harris has the opportunity to reset the image of the Democratic Party, just three months before the general election, and part of that will include reaching young voters and instilling renewed confidence.

One of the better ways to reach that audience is by leaning into ridiculous internet humor — and there is no shortage of that with Gen Z.

Over the last few weeks, as rumors that Biden was dropping out circulated, young people got to work hyping up Harris by sharing emojis, memes and phrases associated with coconut trees, which have become synonymous with Harris thanks to one of her viral quotes. .

“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,” she said in a May 2023 speech, as she explained how a new initiative, aimed at young Hispanic Americans, would also impact the community as a whole.

Since then, “Operation coconut tree” has become a rallying cry for Harris supporters who are eager to see her take on Trump in the 20204 presidential race. Fans have also seized on her quote “everything in context” from that same 2023 speech.

Meanwhile, the Harris campaign is embracing it all: Their current social media tagline is “providing context.”