It was the beginning of summer and neon green covered social media feeds across the globe.
Released by Charli XCX on June 7, the album “brat” took over the world. The songs in the album have a combined total of over 913 million streams on Spotify. Consisting primarily of club-pop and electronic music, “brat” touches on themes of adulthood, friendship and partying.
Charli XCX stated in a TikTok post following the album release that being a ‘brat’ is to be, “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe say some dumb things sometimes … [She is] very honest, very blunt, a little bit volatile.”
Within days of the album’s release, social media users took on the “brat” mindset, coining the 2024 summer as “brat summer.”
“[Typically] people pick out little songs and make trends out of them,” said senior Tessa Jacobs. “I feel like [“brat”] was kind of revolutionary, because it was an entire album that people made their entire personality in life for multiple months.”
Earning Charli XCX the highest Billboard rank of her career, “brat” reached No. 3 on the Billboard Top 100 just a week after its release.
How did brat summer stay on everyone’s feeds for so long?
“Having a distinctive color and distinctive font makes a brand identity that is instantly recognizable, instantly replicable,” said political economy teacher, Patrick Magee-Jenks. “It feels like there’s an in-group if you use it.”
Jacobs believes that the phenomenon of “brat summer” has had an impact on the lives of Lincoln students.
“The whole ‘brat summer’ thing definitely impacted people’s summers … I think that everyone has chilled out a little bit,” said Jacobs.
Magee-Jenks has a different perspective.
“There has always been similar attitudes [like those of ‘brat’]. …‘brat summer’ has given young people permission to embrace a feeling that is not on its own novel.”
On Sept. 2, Charli XCX posted on Instagram “goodbye forever brat summer.” However, the question still remains, will the internet be gearing up for a “brat fall”?
