Almost immediately after President Joe Biden announced on X that he was dropping out of the 2024 race, the internet exploded with endorsements for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris is noted for her natural meme-ability - perhaps the 2024 version of likeability, often expressed by pundits as the extent to which we'd like to "get a beer" with a candidate.
From racially questionable references to coconuts, to connecting through iconic genZ musicians, Harris, who enters the race at a young 59 years old, seems better poised to speak to younger people in their language and through their media.
On Tik Tok, she drew visual distinction between herself and Trump, tapping this summer's hottest rising star, Chappell Roan, to tell us what the US needs - a FEMININOMENON.
In an even more opportune genZ moment, Harris caught props on X from the other hottest star this summer - Charli XCX:
The post sent genX and boomers scrambling for translation of this foreign, genZ language. Of course, Charli had already translated for us, posting on Tik Tok that brat is:
that girl who is a little messy and maybe says dumb things sometimes, who feels herself but then also maybe has a breakdown, but parties through it.
It is honest, blunt, and a little bit volatile. That’s Brat. Think Courtney Love in the ’90s, Amy Winehouse in the early aughts, and Ke$ha in the 2010s.”
As solidly genX, these throwback examples resonate with me, but for the younger crowd Charli conjures brat as "so Julia" (Fox that is). "So Julia" is:
pushing boundaries, no-holds-barred attitude, and raw honesty. She’s confident and unafraid to challenge the status quo.
While mainstream media reporting focused on the meme activity as Harris' marketing team's strategy, Carrie Rentschler and Samantha Thrift (2015a) provide a good reminder that memes are a form of “feminist subjectivity,” which they term “doing feminism in the network” (p. 331).
Insofar as memes operate as a set of (pop) cultural competencies, we can consider them a form of habitus – the powerful in group/out group identifier that “constitutes the basis of belonging” in groups and identities (Rooke, 2007). According to Bourdieu (1989):
habitus produces practices and representations which are available for classification, which are objectively differentiated; however, they are immediately perceived as such only by those agents who possess the code, the classificatory schemes necessary to understand their social meaning (p. 19).
It is quick and easy to write off digital feminist behaviors, such as memes, as shallow and/or "slacktivism," yet if we take a moment, we can see the killjoy bubbling up through brat.
Like the killjoy, those who are brat/so Julia are "willful subjects" who are "no longer willing to appear happy [or] to make others happy" (p. 58). The all are met with "eye rolls" - "oh here she goes" (p. 99).
any will is a willful will if you are not supposed to have a will of your own (p. 78).
All three of these feminist manifestations are grounded in unapologetically rejecting societal expectations, never accepting the status quo, and fully embracing community even/especially when it means putting yourself out there and going out on a limb.
IS brat/so Julia genZ's version of killjoy? I think so.
For rudimentary "videos" follow kk_killjoy on Tik Tok!
Kommentare