Is Brat Summer Really Over?

Credit: TikTok Screenshot

After three months of social media posts, dance choreographies, and making its way into American politics, the Brat phenomenon is officially over, at least according to the very mind behind it, Charli XCX.

Charlotte Emma Aitchison, publicly known as Charli XCX, is an English singer and songwriter. Posting her first song on MySpace in 2008, she has since then been very active, with no less than six studio albums, five mixtapes, three EPs and one live album, to cite only a few of her projects.

After several disappointments, the brat momentum

Spending her teenage years as a singer in the London rave scene, Charli XCX signed with Asylum Records in 2010. She then had several hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with songs such as “I love it,” “Fancy,” and “Boom Clap.” Famously co-writing with Camilla Cabello and Shawn Mendes on “Señorita”, as well as Selena Gomez on “Same Old Love”, she seemed destined to dominate charts both as songwriter and artist, from as early as the 2010s. However, her career never really took off, sparking mixed comments, and even leading Pitchfork to attribute her 2016 EP Vroom Vroom a 4.5/10 rating. Despite her 2022 project CRASH being her open bid for mainstream approval, the album debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 and fell off the chart after three weeks.

Enter Brat. In May 2024, Charli XCX performed a surprise The Lot Radio set in Brooklyn in front of a Brat-green wall, which was emblazoned with the words “i’m your fav reference” in the album’s signature lowercase arial font. From then on, the Brat spirit caught on, with multiple messages painted on the wall during the summer, and an iconography quickly going viral on social media.

Announced on February 28, the album dropped in June. Composed of 15 songs, it was described by the British singer from the very beginning as a “club record.” Although this one was ranked 8.6 by Pitchfork, it is the album cover that quickly took over the internet. After a Barbie pink summer in 2023, Brat opened the way for bold lime green. In continuity with all of Charli XCX’s works, the album cover takes on a simple word: brat. Blending punk elements and hyperpop sounds, it features distorted vocals, electronic beats, and chaotic melodies, deliberately rejecting mainstream polish.

And with that, it all began: a Brat Summer had to be had.

The neon green, Pantone 3507 C, to be precise, quickly conquered the internet. Within minutes, her fans started to self-identify as “brat”, and the #BratSummer accumulated nearly 1 million posts on TikTok. The single Apple became the soundtrack to countless “brat dance” videos, a choreography repeated millions of times on TikTok, and even reaching the Paris 2024 Olympic village. Embodied by celebrities like Glen Powell, Amelia Dimoldenberg or Daisy Edgar-Jones, trying to move their arms up, down and side to side, in sync to the lyrics of the song, the Brat spirit imposed itself as one of the critical successes of the year. The album’s aesthetic took over social media, resulting in the creation of the online “brat generator”, allowing users to replicate the cover with their own words. A fan even designed a website for the very color of the artwork, baptised the “brat green”.

An abrasive, noxious and uncool shade of green

At least, this is how magazines have portrayed the color plastered everywhere the past few months. And rightfully so. As Charli XCX herself said : “It had to be really unfriendly and uncool”. Unsure about the shade of green that would be the most “disgusting”, the singer and her team reportedly tried hundreds of versions of the cover, with a desire to spark conversation about conventions of desirability. Marketing the whole Brat era around the color, the album embraced lime green as more than just a design choice; it became a cultural phenomenon. The album cover being so simple and minimalistic, it was very easy for anyone to badge themselves as “brat” with anything remotely close to that aesthetic.

Major brands enhanced the hype, like Duolingo, Google or Netflix, creating their very own Brat memes. Starbucks Canada brought back its limited edition Cool Lime from 2019, Vogue taught you how to dress “brat”, and home decoration magazines compiled the most “brat” piece of furniture to have in your home. If any trace of that specific green was spotted, you could be sure that it would be labeled “brat”.

Brat as a rejection of Internet’s archetypes

Brat became word of the year, but do you actually know what it means ? Charli XCX herself explained in a TikTok video :

“You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. Who feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like, parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.”

In the era of the tradwife and the cleangirl, Brat paves the way for self-acceptance. Reclaiming the rather pejorative term, the movement advocates for boldness and being true to yourself. It encourages people to be edgy, imperfect and confident, as opposed to being polished and having their life together. The Brat spirit is having a “pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra.” It is a self-defining category, challenging norms and resisting conformity.

Brat rejects brands, buying new, and overconsumption. To be Brat is to buy second-hand and wear the same clothes for a week. Taking influences from grunge and the “Y2K” wave, the Brat looks are relatively simple, bland tank tops, lowrise jeans, and leather touches. Everything is in the attitude.

A Brat summer is therefore the embodiment of the album’s aesthetic : wild nights, drugs, vulnerability, existential questioning, smudged makeup, and chipped manicures.

Using Auto-Tune as its own instrument, making the songs sound more robotic, the album joins the newly reinvigorated spiral of recession pop, alongside Chappell Roan and Kesha. Recession pop is a musical trend characterized by upbeat, danceable tracks emerging during times of economic hardship. This phenomenon was first observed in the 2000s with tracks like Pitbull’s Time of Our Lives and Kesha’s TiK ToK, offering escapism through frenetic energy and relentless clubbing. Brat joins these older songs as inescapable hits for anyone wanting to have fun and party until the end of the night.

Brat politics

The cultural phenomenon even spread to the American political sphere. Only a day after Kamala Harris announced her candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections, Charli XCX posted the now famous tweet “kamala IS brat.” That tweet, which today accumulates over 62 million views, then inspired countless social media posts, and cable news debates. Naturally, Harris’ campaign quickly hopped on that train, adopting the aesthetic and changing their social media banners to mimic the album cover art. The Kamala HQ Instagram page even used the Brat look to declare “Welcome to Kamala HQ. This is the official rapid response page of Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign.”

This tweet came only a few weeks after the coconut tree moment. In May 2023, the then-vice president Kamala Harris made a speech in which she pronounced the following lines : “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?’”

The clip resurfaced in the summer, the meme taking on a life of its own. Remixed into Charli XCX’s Von Dutch in a viral video seen over 6 million times, the Brat album got associated with Kamala Harris even before the singer endorsed the candidate.

Former Barack Obama enjoyed a Brat Summer as well, listing the song 365 on his summer playlist, which he qualified as an “eclectic mix.” Crossing the Atlantic Ocean, we further discover that Boris Johnson is considered the most “brat” politician of the United Kingdom.

The end of Brat ?

Just like that, on September 2, Charli XCX declared the era officially over. In several social media posts, the singer reminisced on Brat-related moments, alongside the caption “Goodbye forever brat summer.”

But, is Brat Summer really over ? I would not be so sure.

Some fans, indeed, vowed to keep the spirit alive, as summer is only starting in the southern hemisphere. Brat is now coming to Australia and New Zealand, with Charli XCX headlining the 2025 Laneway festival, and you better believe that the singer still has more than one trick up her sleeve.

Following the unexpected collaboration between Charli XCX and Billie Eillish on the song Guess, the singer recently released her remix album Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. Featuring a wide variety of artists, such as Ariana Grande, Troye Sivan, The 1975, Addison Rae, Lorde, Bon Iver, or Kesha, the album dropped on October 11 and was quickly embodied by her fans through the #bratautumn.

This remix album, even more electro-pop than the original Brat, is perfect clubbing material. Brat-themed parties thus continue to this day to multiply, in many cities across the world like Lille or Paris.

And rightfully so, as Charli herself recently brought the Brat party to Saturday Night Live. On November 16, the star appeared as both host and musical guest on the TV show. Performing Sympathy is a knife and 360, both off the Brat album, and making her monologue about the Brat Era, the singer’s acting skills were also put to the test, with no less than nine sketches.

Charli XCX’s Sweat tour with the singer Troye Sivan through North America recently ended, after 22 shows, earning $28 million and selling 297,000 tickets. After being friends for much of their careers, the two artists performed songs from Brat and Something To Give Each Other, their two dance pop albums. And although the tour’s last show was on October 23, if you thought it was over, think again.

That’s right, here she goes again. Announced on November 22, Charli XCX will now be embarking on the Brat 2025 Arena tour in April. If, as of right now, the tour solely envisions five US dates, many believe it is just a start, as she is expected to tour Europe in the upcoming year. In the meantime, you will be able to find her at various festivals, such as Coachella, the Tecate Pal Norte in Mexico, the Primavera Sound in Spain or the We Love Green Festival in France.

The Brat album, certified gold in Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, still sits in the top-30 of the Billboard Hot 200 ranking. Earning seven Grammy Awards nominations, for the album as well as 360, Guess, Von Dutch and Apple, Charli XCX is definitely one of the figures of the year, and does not seem ready to say goodbye to the Brat album just yet.

So, is Brat Summer truly over? Maybe officially, but true Brats know better. One thing is for sure: Brat is not just a moment, it is a mindset. And if the past few months are any indication, it is here to crash the party for a long time to come.