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And What Can Be Done?</h5> </a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> <div class="article_content">   <p class="series_tout">This article is part of The 74’s <a href="https://www.the74million.org/edlection-2024">EDlection 2024</a> coverage, which takes a look at candidates’ education policies and how they might impact the American <a href="https://www.the74million.org/edlection-2024/">education system after the 2024 election</a>.</p> <p>A few Saturdays ago, when political science professor Lindsey Cormack had former students over for a barbecue at her New Jersey home, she didn’t expect they’d be buzzing about the 2024 <a href="https://www.the74million.org/edlection-2024/">presidential race</a>. It was July 20, and 81-year-old President Joe Biden was still the Democratic candidate, losing ground daily to former President Donald Trump, 78.</p> <p>So Cormack, who teaches at Stevens Institute of Technology and just <a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Citizen-Why-Its/dp/1394278705">wrote a book</a> on civic engagement, was surprised when they expressed excitement. They were “all on board” — with Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice president, who had yet to become Trump’s direct challenger.</p> <p>No matter. They thought the VP was, in a word, hilarious — and worth their attention.</p> <p>Harris’ 2023 “<a href="https://x.com/evil_female/status/1755948453228683675?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1755948453228683675%7Ctwgr%5Ea0fe43502cdef5de65fe43aab4105800bc823ee9%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2024%2F07%2F25%2Fg-s1-13327%2Fkamala-harris-coconut-tree-meme-context-unburdened-in-the-context">Coconut Tree</a>” video had already gone viral. In it, she recounts her mother giving her sister and her “a hard time sometimes,” saying, “‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” Harris cracks up, then continues with her mother’s lesson: “‘You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.’” </p> <blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@habituallyhenry/video/7400118335708466463" data-video-id="7400118335708466463" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;" id="v34802714335188200"> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 739px; display: block; visibility: unset; max-height: 739px;" name="__tt_embed__v34802714335188200" sandbox="allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-same-origin" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7400118335708466463?lang=en-US&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the74million.org%2F%3Fpost_type%3Darticle%26p%3D731470%26preview%3Dtrue&embedFrom=oembed"></iframe></blockquote> <p>Cormack’s students not only knew the video — they could recite it from memory. She thought to herself, “O.K., there’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/07/25/g-s1-13327/kamala-harris-coconut-tree-meme-context-unburdened-in-the-context">something happening here</a>.”</p> <p>What Cormack witnessed was the ascension of Harris in the minds and social media feeds of young people. It was the prequel to a new phenomenon: the candidate-as-meme, at a time when both candidates desperately need young people to pay attention to them. Whether it translates into votes from this stubborn demographic in November remains an open question.</p> <p>At the moment, it seems to be working for Harris, 59, whose social media effort is driven by an army of volunteers creating a firehose of memes on her behalf.</p> <p>By the time Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, Harris had actually been <a href="https://x.com/ryanlong03/status/1808510079382982870">quietly colonizing</a> young people’s feeds for weeks. Fans posted cleverly cut treatments of her speeches, her <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3_MZBCAcbE">laugh</a>, <a href="https://x.com/WetKissesB/status/1815109867696525661">her dancing</a> (in and out <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@ninaloveskamala/video/7124343880077593899">of the rain</a>), even her love of <a href="https://x.com/findareaction/status/1588718308060168193">Venn diagrams</a>.</p> <p>As early as <a href="https://x.com/WaywardWinifred/status/1809614098948092271">July 6</a>, one X user posted, “I’m ready to fall outta the coconut tree for you, girl. Stop playin.”</p> <h3><strong>‘It’s hard not to love her’</strong></h3> <p>For one fan, the attraction began much earlier.</p> <p>Ryan Long, 22, a senior at the University of Delaware, discovered Harris in November 2016, when she won her Senate seat. She popped up on his cultural radar in earnest four years later, when she became Biden’s vice president. Her appearances often took on a life of their own, he recalled: She’d say “a lot of silly and amusing things” in official settings. “I’ve always found her so, so funny.”</p> <p>Harris’ self-professed geek tendencies soon prompted him and his housemates to decorate a whiteboard with the saying, “I love Venn diagrams.” It stayed up for about a year. The hilarity of the “Coconut Tree” video made it “really popular on <a href="https://www.edgemedianetwork.com/story/334408">gay Twitter</a>” about a year and a half before it hit the mainstream, he said.</p> <aside class="inline_story shortcode simple"><a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/harris-could-set-democrats-k-12-agenda-by-reviving-ideas-from-2020/"><figure style="background-image: url(https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Kamala-harris-election-education-platform-the-74.jpg);"></figure><div><span class="sans related_tag">Related</span><h4 class="sans">Harris Could Set Democrats’ K–12 Agenda By Reviving Ideas from 2020</h4></div></a></aside> <p>Long admitted to not typically following politics. But by the beginning of July, when a poll in his X feed suggested that Harris had a better chance of beating Trump than Biden did, he got excited.</p> <p>“It was a silly, unrealistic excitement,” he said. But that night, he spent about three hours cutting together his favorite bits of Harris footage.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">why did I stay up till 3am making a von dutch brat coconut tree edit featuring kamala harris and why can’t I stop watching it on repeat <a href="https://t.co/hqcmerD1Pb">pic.twitter.com/hqcmerD1Pb</a></p>— ryan (@ryanlong03) <a href="https://twitter.com/ryanlong03/status/1808510079382982870?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 3, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <p>Long’s <a href="https://x.com/ryanlong03/status/1808510079382982870?s=46">July 3 remix</a> of Harris speaking, laughing and dancing has garnered about 4.3 million views on X and helped create a template for the genre. “She is a fresh face at a time that there [is] so much disillusionment in politics, especially among young people,” he said. </p> <p>Now that she’s the Democratic nominee, she offers the potential to bring a lot of young people along for the ride, Long said. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote image_blockquote"><blockquote><p>She is a fresh face at a time that there (is) so much disillusionment in politics, especially among young people.</p><cite>Ryan Long, University of Delaware student</cite><span><img src="https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ryan-long-young-voters-kamala-harris-300x300.jpg"></span></blockquote></figure> <p>In that sense, she is much like Trump, who “has this huge cult of personality. He’s able to make riffs, say things off the cuff, make people laugh, make people excited, make people sad, make people just feel their emotions. And I think Kamala Harris does that for a whole other subsection of voters.”</p> <p>By comparison, Biden’s push to reach young voters via social media <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/us/politics/joe-biden-donald-trump-2024-campaign-tiktok.html">felt awkward</a> and all but non-existent to many.</p> <blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@dailymail/video/7403048827453869358" data-video-id="7403048827453869358" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;" id="v19703671127223430"> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 739px; display: block; visibility: unset; max-height: 739px;" name="__tt_embed__v19703671127223430" sandbox="allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-same-origin" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7403048827453869358?lang=en-US&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the74million.org%2F%3Fpost_type%3Darticle%26p%3D731470%26preview%3Dtrue&embedFrom=oembed"></iframe></blockquote> <p>For his part, Trump has benefited from the efforts his own devoted fans, who have reveled in his ties to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@positivevibesonly901/video/7393356356679552302">professional wrestling</a> and his <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@daily.facts363/video/7391404307876154629">defiant fist pump</a> after the attempt on his life last month. The campaign has also gotten a boost from a small <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dailymail/video/7403048827453869358">group of creators</a> on the right who have become a “shadow online ad agency” for his campaign, spending the past year producing similar content for the GOP nominee. The group, which calls itself <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-online-war-machine-trains-weapons-ron-desantis-rcna77630">Trump’s Online War Machine</a>, operates anonymously, its memes “riddled with racist stereotypes, demeaning tropes about L.G.B.T.Q. people and broad scatological humor,” The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/us/politics/trump-meme-trolls-2024.html">observed</a> last December.</p> <h3><strong>‘Authentic and true’ narratives attract Gen Z</strong></h3> <p>To be sure, the reaction to Harris on social media has been unprecedented. Jessica Siles, a spokesperson for the Gen-Z-led advocacy group <a href="https://votersoftomorrow.org/">Voters of Tomorrow</a>, said she had stopped counting how many conversations she has had with people about what it means to be “brat.”</p> <p>That adjective comes compliments of British singer Charli XCX, who on July 21 <a href="https://x.com/charli_xcx/status/1815182384066707861">tweeted</a>, “kamala IS brat,” defining the term as “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some like dumb things sometimes.” She’s honest, blunt — and a bit volatile.</p> <p>It all adds up to a kind of authenticity “that young people really resonate with,” said Siles. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote image_blockquote"><blockquote><p>I think we're kind of uniquely qualified to be able to tell who's posting something authentically or not.</p><cite>Jessica Siles, Voters of Tomorrow</cite><span><img src="https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/jessica-siles-young-voters-kamala-harris-300x300.jpg"></span></blockquote></figure> <p>Even U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona tried to get in on the act, posting on X in the lime green color of the moment that “Defending public education is part of the essence of brat summer.” To some, it appeared, as the kids say, a little cringe. One critic, invoking the iconic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiOMbqPHFwo">adult-posing-as-a-teen</a> scene from “30 Rock,” <a href="https://x.com/rpondiscio/status/1819376329579507720">tweeted</a>, “How do you do, fellow kids?”</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Defending public education is part of the essence of brat summer. <a href="https://t.co/ysyK9qVJ5c">pic.twitter.com/ysyK9qVJ5c</a></p>— Secretary Miguel Cardona (@SecCardona) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecCardona/status/1819371178357666049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 2, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <p>Most Gen-Zers were indeed kids the last time a meme-worthy candidate ran for president. Siles, 24, was just 8 years old when Barack Obama ran his first presidential campaign. She said seeing a candidate talk about who they are unapologetically while boasting impressive career accomplishments “is just super refreshing to young voters.” </p> <p>Gen Z grew up with these. “So I think we’re kind of uniquely qualified to be able to tell who’s posting something authentically or not,” she said. Young people don’t take the time to create, edit, post and share videos of “people they’re not truly excited about.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="707" src="https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-731477" srcset="https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843.jpg 1024w, https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843-300x207.jpg 300w, https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843-724x500.jpg 724w, https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843-187x129.jpg 187w, https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843-768x530.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">President Barack Obama dances alongside Mariah Carey during the 2013 National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. Many Gen Z voters were kids when Obama ran his two presidential campaigns. (Saul Loeb, AFP via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>Harris began resonating with Siles after she watched a video of the vice president <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3Q2GBEPRno">getting emotional</a> talking about her mother’s cancer. Siles remembered that it “showed a different side that we don’t always see of elected officials and politicians that I thought was really powerful.”</p> <p>In the three days after Harris announced her candidacy, Siles’ organization got more applications to join and start new chapters than in the prior two months.</p> <p>The group, whose chief of staff is all of 16, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/gen-z-voters-trump-haley/">made news</a> earlier this year by making mischief in the race: It scooped up unused Web domain names for groups such as GenZforTrump.org and guided viewers to <a href="https://www.genzvsfarright.org/">a new site</a> that targets young voters in battleground states. It also launched a digital ad campaign on Instagram and Snapchat.</p> <aside class="inline_story shortcode simple"><a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/harris-pick-tim-walz-would-be-first-k-12-teacher-since-lyndon-johnson-to-be-vp/"><figure style="background-image: url(https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/tim-walz-governor-vice-president-pick-kamala-harris-education.jpg);"></figure><div><span class="sans related_tag">Related</span><h4 class="sans">Harris Pick Tim Walz Would be First K-12 Teacher Since Lyndon Johnson to be VP</h4></div></a></aside> <p>David Paleologos, director of the <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/academics/research-at-suffolk/political-research-center">Suffolk University Political Research Center</a> in Boston, said there’s no question that social media has trained young people’s attention on Harris, who needs the votes: Exit polls from 2020 suggest that Biden beat Trump by 24 percentage points among voters ages 18-29. Harris hasn’t quite reached those margins among potential young voters in the recent polling, he said, but she’s close — up by about 20 points. </p> <p>In order to reach 2020 levels in the next three months, she’ll need a social media strategy of “messaging memeology,” Paleologos said, which strings together “a seemingly haphazard sequence of posts that paint a picture, much like the colorful stones in a mosaic.”</p> <p>However, he said, one risk of that is staying power: “It only lasts until the next meme about someone else captures that young person’s short attention span.” Research also shows that young voters are the least participatory in elections.</p> <aside class="inline_story shortcode simple"><a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/8-things-to-know-about-tim-walz-the-democratic-tickets-top-teacher/"><figure style="background-image: url(https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/tim-walz-teacher.jpg);"></figure><div><span class="sans related_tag">Related</span><h4 class="sans">8 Things to Know About Tim Walz, the Democratic Ticket’s Top Teacher</h4></div></a></aside> <p>Just like clockwork, since she announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Aug. 6, the <a href="https://x.com/RickLenzie/status/1820808955720785923?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1820808955720785923%7Ctwgr%5E33ed95ef07a1fe1d35e29cc9f939c8d89f8480c8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theroot.com%2Fembed%2Finset%2Fiframe%3Fid%3Dtwitter-1820808955720785923autosize%3D1">Walz memes</a> have <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@julialittle0/video/7400055444523470126">begun flowing</a>.</p> <h3><strong>‘I hate how I can feel the propaganda’</strong></h3> <p>To be sure, not all young people are totally sold on the coconut memes or the high energy. In <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@meatball2702/video/7395341336724950314?_r=1&_t=8oW9yXfsY1O">a recent TikTok</a>, a 19-year-old user from southwestern Missouri who goes by the username “Meatball” looks into the camera and confesses, “I hate how I can <em>feel</em> the propaganda of the Kamala campaign working on me.” </p> <blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@meatball2702/video/7395341336724950314" data-video-id="7395341336724950314" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;" id="v67900885019545170"> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 739px; display: block; visibility: unset;" name="__tt_embed__v67900885019545170" sandbox="allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-same-origin" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7395341336724950314?lang=en-US&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the74million.org%2F%3Fpost_type%3Darticle%26p%3D731470%26preview%3Dtrue&embedFrom=oembed"></iframe></blockquote> <p>In the video, posted July 24, she continues, “Part of me is like, ‘Yass queen, purr! Brat Summer! Kamala Harris!’ And then I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s a politician, actually. That’s the vice president of the United States.’ Like, I’m still going to vote for her, but I don’t like feeling like I <em>want</em> to vote for her.”</p> <p>In an interview via text messages, Meatball, who asked to withhold her name for safety reasons, said she posted the video after getting “countless” Harris-related videos on her “For You” page — a few from Harris’ official account. “I wanted to see if anyone else was experiencing this disconnect between wanting to participate in something fun and not trusting politicians,” she said.</p> <aside class="inline_story shortcode simple"><a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/kamala-harris-campaigns-with-running-mate-tim-walz-in-philadelphia-its-a-fight-for-the-future/"><figure style="background-image: url(https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Walz-Harris-fight-for-the-future-philadelphia.jpg);"></figure><div><span class="sans related_tag">Related</span><h4 class="sans">Harris Campaigns with VP Pick Tim Walz in Philly: ‘It’s a Fight for the Future’</h4></div></a></aside> <p>It’s safe to say they do: In three weeks, her video garnered 1.8 million views and more than 289,000 “likes.” </p> <p>But Meatball said she wishes older generations understood that Gen Z’s opinions “aren’t less thought out just because we share them in unconventional ways” like TikToks. “Meme culture is complex and has been developing since the creation of the internet chat room. Just because an older person doesn’t understand what we’re saying doesn’t mean we aren’t saying anything at all.”</p> <p>Long, the Delaware student who posted the X video of Harris, predicted the memes and videos will have a big effect. </p> <p>He has worked in e-commerce marketing and has seen the power of social media to convert views into sales. “I think the same principle applies for elections: It’s going to turn people out. It’s going to get them excited.”</p>   <span class="cta_snippet ft"><p><em>Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. </em><a class="arrow" href="https://www.the74million.org/about/newsletters/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=top&utm_id=newsletter"><strong>Sign up for The 74 Newsletter</strong></a></p></span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="article_footer grid"> <div class="single_share"> <ul> <li><a class="icon-social twitter" href="http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://www.the74million.org/article/veep-candidate-brat-kamala-harris-fires-up-gen-z-on-social-media/&text=Veep%2C+Candidate%2C+brat%3A+Kamala+Harris+Fires+Up+Gen+Z+on+Social+Media @The74" target="_blank" title="Share this story on X"></a></li> <li><a class="icon-social facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://www.the74million.org/article/veep-candidate-brat-kamala-harris-fires-up-gen-z-on-social-media/" target="_blank" title="Share this story on 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</div> <div class="republish"> <a href="#" onclick="t74_show_republish_box();"> Republish This Article <span class="desktop">Learn More</span> </a> </div> <div class="author_profile"> <address class=""> <p><a class="author_inline_link" href="https://www.the74million.org/contributor/544588/">Greg Toppo</a> is a senior writer at The 74.</p> <a class="author_contact twitter" href="http://twitter.com/gtoppo" target="_blank">@gtoppo</a> <a class="author_contact email" href="mailto:greg@the74million.org">greg@the74million.org</a> <div class="author_image" style="background-image:url(https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/GT-headshot-500x500-1-300x300.jpg)"> <img src="https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/GT-headshot-500x500-1-300x300.jpg"> </div> </address> </div> <div class="article_tags desktop"> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/2016-election/">2016 election</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/charli-xcx/">Charli XCX</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/donald-trump/">Donald Trump</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/election-2024/">election 2024</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/kamala-harris/">kamala harris</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/memes/">memes</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/politics/">Politics</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/presidential-race/">presidential race</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/social-media/">social media</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/tiktok/">TikTok</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/twitter/">Twitter</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/x/">X</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.the74million.org/tag/young-voters/">young voters</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </article>  <div id="republish-box" data-postid=731470 data-gaid="UA-64416702-1" data-ga4id="G-YQBR2DBZ9Z"> <div> <span class="sans">Republish This Article</span> <p><i>We want our stories to be shared as widely as possible — for free.</i></p> <p><a style="color:white" href="/republish/"><i>Please view The 74's republishing terms.</i></a></p><br/><br/> <textarea id="repub_content" class="text-scroller" readonly> <h1>Veep, Candidate, brat: Kamala Harris Fires Up Gen Z on Social Media</h1> <h2>But will videos of coconut trees, Venn diagrams and other forms of ‘messaging memeology,’ as one pollster put it, push kids to vote?</h2> <p class="sans">By <a rel="author" href="https://www.the74million.org/contributor/544588/">Greg Toppo</a></p> <img src="https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/kamala-harris-social-media-brat4.gif"> <p>This story first appeared at <a href="https://www.the74million.org">The 74</a>, a nonprofit news site covering education. <a href="https://www.the74million.org/about/newsletters/?utm_source=republish-button&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=republish">Sign up for free newsletters from The 74</a> to get more like this in your inbox.</p> <p>A few Saturdays ago, when political science professor Lindsey Cormack had former students over for a barbecue at her New Jersey home, she didn’t expect they’d be buzzing about the 2024 <a href="https://www.the74million.org/edlection-2024/">presidential race</a>. It was July 20, and 81-year-old President Joe Biden was still the Democratic candidate, losing ground daily to former President Donald Trump, 78.</p> <p>So Cormack, who teaches at Stevens Institute of Technology and just <a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Citizen-Why-Its/dp/1394278705">wrote a book</a> on civic engagement, was surprised when they expressed excitement. They were “all on board” — with Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice president, who had yet to become Trump’s direct challenger.</p> <p>No matter. They thought the VP was, in a word, hilarious — and worth their attention.</p> <p>Harris’ 2023 “<a href="https://x.com/evil_female/status/1755948453228683675?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1755948453228683675%7Ctwgr%5Ea0fe43502cdef5de65fe43aab4105800bc823ee9%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2024%2F07%2F25%2Fg-s1-13327%2Fkamala-harris-coconut-tree-meme-context-unburdened-in-the-context">Coconut Tree</a>” video had already gone viral. In it, she recounts her mother giving her sister and her “a hard time sometimes,” saying, “‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” Harris cracks up, then continues with her mother’s lesson: “‘You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.’” </p> <blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@habituallyhenry/video/7400118335708466463" data-video-id="7400118335708466463" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;" id="v34802714335188200"> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 739px; display: block; visibility: unset; max-height: 739px;" name="__tt_embed__v34802714335188200" sandbox="allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-same-origin" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7400118335708466463?lang=en-US&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the74million.org%2F%3Fpost_type%3Darticle%26p%3D731470%26preview%3Dtrue&embedFrom=oembed"></iframe></blockquote> <p>Cormack’s students not only knew the video — they could recite it from memory. She thought to herself, “O.K., there’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/07/25/g-s1-13327/kamala-harris-coconut-tree-meme-context-unburdened-in-the-context">something happening here</a>.”</p> <p>What Cormack witnessed was the ascension of Harris in the minds and social media feeds of young people. It was the prequel to a new phenomenon: the candidate-as-meme, at a time when both candidates desperately need young people to pay attention to them. Whether it translates into votes from this stubborn demographic in November remains an open question.</p> <p>At the moment, it seems to be working for Harris, 59, whose social media effort is driven by an army of volunteers creating a firehose of memes on her behalf.</p> <p>By the time Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, Harris had actually been <a href="https://x.com/ryanlong03/status/1808510079382982870">quietly colonizing</a> young people’s feeds for weeks. Fans posted cleverly cut treatments of her speeches, her <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3_MZBCAcbE">laugh</a>, <a href="https://x.com/WetKissesB/status/1815109867696525661">her dancing</a> (in and out <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@ninaloveskamala/video/7124343880077593899">of the rain</a>), even her love of <a href="https://x.com/findareaction/status/1588718308060168193">Venn diagrams</a>.</p> <p>As early as <a href="https://x.com/WaywardWinifred/status/1809614098948092271">July 6</a>, one X user posted, “I’m ready to fall outta the coconut tree for you, girl. Stop playin.”</p> <h3><strong>‘It’s hard not to love her’</strong></h3> <p>For one fan, the attraction began much earlier.</p> <p>Ryan Long, 22, a senior at the University of Delaware, discovered Harris in November 2016, when she won her Senate seat. She popped up on his cultural radar in earnest four years later, when she became Biden’s vice president. Her appearances often took on a life of their own, he recalled: She’d say “a lot of silly and amusing things” in official settings. “I’ve always found her so, so funny.”</p> <p>Harris’ self-professed geek tendencies soon prompted him and his housemates to decorate a whiteboard with the saying, “I love Venn diagrams.” It stayed up for about a year. The hilarity of the “Coconut Tree” video made it “really popular on <a href="https://www.edgemedianetwork.com/story/334408">gay Twitter</a>” about a year and a half before it hit the mainstream, he said.</p> <aside class="inline_story shortcode simple"><a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/harris-could-set-democrats-k-12-agenda-by-reviving-ideas-from-2020/"><figure style="background-image: url(https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Kamala-harris-election-education-platform-the-74.jpg);"></figure><div><span class="sans related_tag">Related</span><h4 class="sans">Harris Could Set Democrats’ K–12 Agenda By Reviving Ideas from 2020</h4></div></a></aside> <p>Long admitted to not typically following politics. But by the beginning of July, when a poll in his X feed suggested that Harris had a better chance of beating Trump than Biden did, he got excited.</p> <p>“It was a silly, unrealistic excitement,” he said. But that night, he spent about three hours cutting together his favorite bits of Harris footage.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">why did I stay up till 3am making a von dutch brat coconut tree edit featuring kamala harris and why can’t I stop watching it on repeat <a href="https://t.co/hqcmerD1Pb">pic.twitter.com/hqcmerD1Pb</a></p>— ryan (@ryanlong03) <a href="https://twitter.com/ryanlong03/status/1808510079382982870?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 3, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <p>Long’s <a href="https://x.com/ryanlong03/status/1808510079382982870?s=46">July 3 remix</a> of Harris speaking, laughing and dancing has garnered about 4.3 million views on X and helped create a template for the genre. “She is a fresh face at a time that there [is] so much disillusionment in politics, especially among young people,” he said. </p> <p>Now that she’s the Democratic nominee, she offers the potential to bring a lot of young people along for the ride, Long said. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote image_blockquote"><blockquote><p>She is a fresh face at a time that there (is) so much disillusionment in politics, especially among young people.</p><cite>Ryan Long, University of Delaware student</cite><span><img src="https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ryan-long-young-voters-kamala-harris-300x300.jpg"></span></blockquote></figure> <p>In that sense, she is much like Trump, who “has this huge cult of personality. He’s able to make riffs, say things off the cuff, make people laugh, make people excited, make people sad, make people just feel their emotions. And I think Kamala Harris does that for a whole other subsection of voters.”</p> <p>By comparison, Biden’s push to reach young voters via social media <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/us/politics/joe-biden-donald-trump-2024-campaign-tiktok.html">felt awkward</a> and all but non-existent to many.</p> <blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@dailymail/video/7403048827453869358" data-video-id="7403048827453869358" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;" id="v19703671127223430"> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 739px; display: block; visibility: unset; max-height: 739px;" name="__tt_embed__v19703671127223430" sandbox="allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-same-origin" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7403048827453869358?lang=en-US&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the74million.org%2F%3Fpost_type%3Darticle%26p%3D731470%26preview%3Dtrue&embedFrom=oembed"></iframe></blockquote> <p>For his part, Trump has benefited from the efforts his own devoted fans, who have reveled in his ties to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@positivevibesonly901/video/7393356356679552302">professional wrestling</a> and his <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@daily.facts363/video/7391404307876154629">defiant fist pump</a> after the attempt on his life last month. The campaign has also gotten a boost from a small <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dailymail/video/7403048827453869358">group of creators</a> on the right who have become a “shadow online ad agency” for his campaign, spending the past year producing similar content for the GOP nominee. The group, which calls itself <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-online-war-machine-trains-weapons-ron-desantis-rcna77630">Trump’s Online War Machine</a>, operates anonymously, its memes “riddled with racist stereotypes, demeaning tropes about L.G.B.T.Q. people and broad scatological humor,” The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/us/politics/trump-meme-trolls-2024.html">observed</a> last December.</p> <h3><strong>‘Authentic and true’ narratives attract Gen Z</strong></h3> <p>To be sure, the reaction to Harris on social media has been unprecedented. Jessica Siles, a spokesperson for the Gen-Z-led advocacy group <a href="https://votersoftomorrow.org/">Voters of Tomorrow</a>, said she had stopped counting how many conversations she has had with people about what it means to be “brat.”</p> <p>That adjective comes compliments of British singer Charli XCX, who on July 21 <a href="https://x.com/charli_xcx/status/1815182384066707861">tweeted</a>, “kamala IS brat,” defining the term as “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some like dumb things sometimes.” She’s honest, blunt — and a bit volatile.</p> <p>It all adds up to a kind of authenticity “that young people really resonate with,” said Siles. </p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote image_blockquote"><blockquote><p>I think we're kind of uniquely qualified to be able to tell who's posting something authentically or not.</p><cite>Jessica Siles, Voters of Tomorrow</cite><span><img src="https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/jessica-siles-young-voters-kamala-harris-300x300.jpg"></span></blockquote></figure> <p>Even U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona tried to get in on the act, posting on X in the lime green color of the moment that “Defending public education is part of the essence of brat summer.” To some, it appeared, as the kids say, a little cringe. One critic, invoking the iconic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiOMbqPHFwo">adult-posing-as-a-teen</a> scene from “30 Rock,” <a href="https://x.com/rpondiscio/status/1819376329579507720">tweeted</a>, “How do you do, fellow kids?”</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Defending public education is part of the essence of brat summer. <a href="https://t.co/ysyK9qVJ5c">pic.twitter.com/ysyK9qVJ5c</a></p>— Secretary Miguel Cardona (@SecCardona) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecCardona/status/1819371178357666049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 2, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <p>Most Gen-Zers were indeed kids the last time a meme-worthy candidate ran for president. Siles, 24, was just 8 years old when Barack Obama ran his first presidential campaign. She said seeing a candidate talk about who they are unapologetically while boasting impressive career accomplishments “is just super refreshing to young voters.” </p> <p>Gen Z grew up with these. “So I think we’re kind of uniquely qualified to be able to tell who’s posting something authentically or not,” she said. Young people don’t take the time to create, edit, post and share videos of “people they’re not truly excited about.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="707" src="https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-731477" srcset="https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843.jpg 1024w, https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843-300x207.jpg 300w, https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843-724x500.jpg 724w, https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843-187x129.jpg 187w, https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-454017843-768x530.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">President Barack Obama dances alongside Mariah Carey during the 2013 National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. Many Gen Z voters were kids when Obama ran his two presidential campaigns. (Saul Loeb, AFP via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>Harris began resonating with Siles after she watched a video of the vice president <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3Q2GBEPRno">getting emotional</a> talking about her mother’s cancer. Siles remembered that it “showed a different side that we don’t always see of elected officials and politicians that I thought was really powerful.”</p> <p>In the three days after Harris announced her candidacy, Siles’ organization got more applications to join and start new chapters than in the prior two months.</p> <p>The group, whose chief of staff is all of 16, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/gen-z-voters-trump-haley/">made news</a> earlier this year by making mischief in the race: It scooped up unused Web domain names for groups such as GenZforTrump.org and guided viewers to <a href="https://www.genzvsfarright.org/">a new site</a> that targets young voters in battleground states. It also launched a digital ad campaign on Instagram and Snapchat.</p> <aside class="inline_story shortcode simple"><a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/harris-pick-tim-walz-would-be-first-k-12-teacher-since-lyndon-johnson-to-be-vp/"><figure style="background-image: url(https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/tim-walz-governor-vice-president-pick-kamala-harris-education.jpg);"></figure><div><span class="sans related_tag">Related</span><h4 class="sans">Harris Pick Tim Walz Would be First K-12 Teacher Since Lyndon Johnson to be VP</h4></div></a></aside> <p>David Paleologos, director of the <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/academics/research-at-suffolk/political-research-center">Suffolk University Political Research Center</a> in Boston, said there’s no question that social media has trained young people’s attention on Harris, who needs the votes: Exit polls from 2020 suggest that Biden beat Trump by 24 percentage points among voters ages 18-29. Harris hasn’t quite reached those margins among potential young voters in the recent polling, he said, but she’s close — up by about 20 points. </p> <p>In order to reach 2020 levels in the next three months, she’ll need a social media strategy of “messaging memeology,” Paleologos said, which strings together “a seemingly haphazard sequence of posts that paint a picture, much like the colorful stones in a mosaic.”</p> <p>However, he said, one risk of that is staying power: “It only lasts until the next meme about someone else captures that young person’s short attention span.” Research also shows that young voters are the least participatory in elections.</p> <aside class="inline_story shortcode simple"><a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/8-things-to-know-about-tim-walz-the-democratic-tickets-top-teacher/"><figure style="background-image: url(https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/tim-walz-teacher.jpg);"></figure><div><span class="sans related_tag">Related</span><h4 class="sans">8 Things to Know About Tim Walz, the Democratic Ticket’s Top Teacher</h4></div></a></aside> <p>Just like clockwork, since she announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Aug. 6, the <a href="https://x.com/RickLenzie/status/1820808955720785923?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1820808955720785923%7Ctwgr%5E33ed95ef07a1fe1d35e29cc9f939c8d89f8480c8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theroot.com%2Fembed%2Finset%2Fiframe%3Fid%3Dtwitter-1820808955720785923autosize%3D1">Walz memes</a> have <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@julialittle0/video/7400055444523470126">begun flowing</a>.</p> <h3><strong>‘I hate how I can feel the propaganda’</strong></h3> <p>To be sure, not all young people are totally sold on the coconut memes or the high energy. In <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@meatball2702/video/7395341336724950314?_r=1&_t=8oW9yXfsY1O">a recent TikTok</a>, a 19-year-old user from southwestern Missouri who goes by the username “Meatball” looks into the camera and confesses, “I hate how I can <em>feel</em> the propaganda of the Kamala campaign working on me.” </p> <blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@meatball2702/video/7395341336724950314" data-video-id="7395341336724950314" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;" id="v67900885019545170"> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 739px; display: block; visibility: unset;" name="__tt_embed__v67900885019545170" sandbox="allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-same-origin" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7395341336724950314?lang=en-US&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the74million.org%2F%3Fpost_type%3Darticle%26p%3D731470%26preview%3Dtrue&embedFrom=oembed"></iframe></blockquote> <p>In the video, posted July 24, she continues, “Part of me is like, ‘Yass queen, purr! Brat Summer! Kamala Harris!’ And then I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s a politician, actually. That’s the vice president of the United States.’ Like, I’m still going to vote for her, but I don’t like feeling like I <em>want</em> to vote for her.”</p> <p>In an interview via text messages, Meatball, who asked to withhold her name for safety reasons, said she posted the video after getting “countless” Harris-related videos on her “For You” page — a few from Harris’ official account. “I wanted to see if anyone else was experiencing this disconnect between wanting to participate in something fun and not trusting politicians,” she said.</p> <aside class="inline_story shortcode simple"><a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/kamala-harris-campaigns-with-running-mate-tim-walz-in-philadelphia-its-a-fight-for-the-future/"><figure style="background-image: url(https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Walz-Harris-fight-for-the-future-philadelphia.jpg);"></figure><div><span class="sans related_tag">Related</span><h4 class="sans">Harris Campaigns with VP Pick Tim Walz in Philly: ‘It’s a Fight for the Future’</h4></div></a></aside> <p>It’s safe to say they do: In three weeks, her video garnered 1.8 million views and more than 289,000 “likes.” </p> <p>But Meatball said she wishes older generations understood that Gen Z’s opinions “aren’t less thought out just because we share them in unconventional ways” like TikToks. “Meme culture is complex and has been developing since the creation of the internet chat room. Just because an older person doesn’t understand what we’re saying doesn’t mean we aren’t saying anything at all.”</p> <p>Long, the Delaware student who posted the X video of Harris, predicted the memes and videos will have a big effect. </p> <p>He has worked in e-commerce marketing and has seen the power of social media to convert views into sales. “I think the same principle applies for elections: It’s going to turn people out. It’s going to get them excited.”</p> </textarea><br/> <button onclick="t74_copyContents('repub_content')">Copy HTML</button><br/> </div> <div id="repub-overlay" onclick="t74_show_republish_box();"></div> </div>  <div id="frontpage-repeat"> <div class="wrap"> <section id="category" class="capped"> <h2>On The 74 Today</h2> </section> </div> <div id="frontpage-repeat-container"></div> </div> </div>  <footer> <div class="sub_navigation wrap grid"> <nav class="sn_sections"> <h3>Sections</h3> <div class="menu-t74_footer_sections-container"><ul id="footer_sections" class="menu"><li class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-690490"><a href="https://www.the74million.org/news/">News</a></li> <li class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-690489"><a href="https://www.the74million.org/opinion/">Opinion</a></li> <li class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-690487"><a 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