Harris campaign embraces ‘brat,’ coconut tree memes to court young voters 

Social media has been flooded with lime green-tinted, coconut-filled images and videos boosting Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign in the days since President Biden announced his plans to step aside.

The Harris campaign and Democrats backing her presidential bid have embraced the online hype, including remixes of Harris sharing a quote from her mother that referenced a “coconut tree” and edits calling Harris “brat” as coined by pop star Charli XCX, as the party tries to capture key support from young voters.

“I think it’s fun for people to feel like they’re a part of something. And even though it is around these perhaps silly and goofy memes, I do think they feel like they’re a part of this moment and something larger than that,” said Annie Wu Henry, a digital and political strategist.  

“Everyone is aware this is more than just memes and silly videos. Obviously, there’s a lot at stake in this election cycle, and what could be a really historic next presidency. And I think people are just really enthusiastic about that. And we’ve seen that from the organic social media frenzy that has happened,” Henry added.

The video edits emerged on social media in the weeks after Biden’s abysmal debate performance as the president faced growing pressure to step aside. Since Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Harris, the memes have gained new attention.

One edit featured clips of the vice president, including her now infamous “coconut tree” line, to Charli XCX’s “Von dutch,” while another video drew comparisons among Biden, Trump and Harris set to Chappell Roan’s “Femininomenon.”  

The Harris campaign isn’t shying away from the internet hype that is seemingly geared toward younger voters.

After Charli XCX informally endorsed Harris with a post on the social platform X by writing “Kamala is brat,” the “KamalaHQ” page for her campaign changed their banner on X to match the signature green color and black font of the “Brat” album cover.  

The campaign’s TikTok account has similarly embraced the meme culture surrounding Harris, making its own version of the “Femininomenon” edit and highlighting Charli XCX’s post to her song “365.” 

Other Democrats have joined in, too.  

Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), who is among the mass of elected Democrats to endorse Harris’s campaign, posted a reference to the “Brat” album Tuesday, too.  

“My team hung this up in our campaign HQ about a month ago. Now I finally know what it means,” Kaine posted, along with a photo of his name printed in the album’s font on paper in the signature green color.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said in an interview Tuesday on CNN that the attention is a “classic example” of when pop culture and politics intertwine.  

“It takes a special kind of candidate, and a special kind of leader, to inspire that,” Frost said. “It has to be organic. You can’t make it happen.” 

“So, whether [it’s] coconut trees [or] talking about ‘brat’ or whatever, the message is getting across to millions, tens of millions of young people across the entire country and across the entire world and I think that’s really inspiring,” he added.  

The coconut tree has also become an informal symbol of the Harris campaign, as social media has memeified an anecdote the vice president told about her mother more than a year ago. 

“My mother used to — she would give us a hard time sometimes, and 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? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,’” she said at a swearing-in ceremony for Hispanic educational advancement leaders in May 2023. 

Several Democrats have used coconuts and coconut trees to express support for the vice president as she takes up the mantle of the Democratic Party.

Shortly after Biden stepped aside Sunday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) posted three emoji – a coconut, a coconut tree and an American flag — on X, while Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) shared a photo of himself climbing a tree to harvest coconuts. 

The recent explosion of memes suggests that young people are paying attention, said DeNora Getachew, CEO of DoSomething, a nonprofit focused on youth activism. 

“If there were no memes, if there was no engagement online, which is the primary source where Gen Z and millennials are getting their news from, then that would mean that this election wasn’t relevant,” she said. 

“I think we’ve seen a marked change in the level of engagement and participation since Sunday, just even with what we’re seeing online and how young people are getting engaged,” Getachew added.

Henry, who is 28 and considers herself a “zillennial” between the Gen Z and millennial age cohorts, said these trends don’t need to be for everyone, and there’s other opportunities for the campaign to meet people where they are and on what they’re consuming.  

“It’s fun to be in those circles, and in these online and certain demographic circles. But that also doesn’t mean we need to force the brat trend upon the electorate at large,” she said. 

Henry worked on the campaign for Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who used TikTok to boost his profile. She is doing work around this election cycle but not directly on the former Biden campaign.  

TikTok is not a new tool for the campaign. The former Biden campaign had been using the app as a tool to post campaign content before Harris took over as the likely nominee.  

Even after Biden signed a bill that could lead to a ban on TikTok if the company is not divested from its Chinese parent company ByteDance, the campaign continued to use the app. TikTok is suing to block the law from going into effect.

Henry said the reason other memes, such as the “Dark Brandon” meme for the Biden campaign, didn’t stick the same way is because people need to be excited about who or what the meme is based around in order for it “to land.”

At the same time, she said it’s important to remember that young voters care about the issues and what is at stake in November.

“I think young people care about much more than just the memes. But I do think the memes and the fun and the joy that is happening can make this campaign — that’s going to still be very long and hard — it can bring that joy and energy that people will need to get through it and keep them engaged and activated,” she said.