At a time when wars, political campaigns, and an Olympics were going on, in Summer 2024, ‘brat’ popped up with no apparent connection to these. Here was a girl youth phenomenon expressing itself through Charli xcx’s sudden, huge celebrity.
It started with singer song writer Charli xcx’s sixth album, ‘Brat.’ Its bold green rectangle on the album cover could have writing on it. The whole package, the singer’s style, songs, and visual image, suddenly took off and became a mega hit.
Are those who study youth ready to include this moment’s splash? In a general way, sociologists recognize that media objects illuminate young people’s lives and relationships. But are we capable of grasping this phenomenon in all its various pieces? Here is a social space, radiating its meaning in a particular slice of time. Let’s list some of the dimensions of this. Its many components deliver different messages, all in a very short time.
The album cover has a catchy green rectangle. On this text can appear.
The music and lyrics are themselves memorable – Charli xcx has been recording for a number of years.
The album title is ‘Brat,’ which is a pejorative term; the written word catches attention by being unusual. The verbal meaning is deepened by Charli’s extended explanation.
Charli said that “brat” means “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party … maybe says dumb things sometimes … who feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown but parties through it … is very honest, very blunt, a little bit volatile.
The word brat is used adjectivally in the phrases ‘brat girl’ and ‘brat summer.’
Note that the vision of girlhood here has contradictory opposites; it describes a girl who has many feelings and contrasting behaviors.
Brat turns out to be a good thing, not a term of disapprobation. It is a cool persona for its, mainly Gen Z, audience. It has been use supportively for the woman American presidential candidate with the phrase ‘Kamala is brat,’ suggesting that she is young at heart and cool!
My question for sociologists is whether we have put enough effort into understanding how suddenly appearing, generationally embraced images redefine what is desirable and acceptable in people. Does each generation change what it wants people to be like? Does this express what a generation feels society needs? Are social scientists able to see what is going on in this densely expressive mode of communication? My impression is that influential media events, like ‘brat’ in Summer 2024, are still dismissed by older people as too complicated, and disappearing too fast, to be credited with being influential.
This is sad because people in every generation remember the big media events of their growing up; these are defining moments, unforgettable for how they changed the picture of what produces successful and happy people. We can all remember examples of these; illuminating moments are part of our collective understanding and should not, surely, be missing from social science descriptions of modern of life.
