“Brat? Why are you calling Kamala a brat?” My 56-year-old mother sits in our family living room, surrounded by her three Gen-Z daughters. Behind her, the television reverberates a speech from Kamala Harris, the backdrop filled with the audience’s muffled sounds of “preach” and “yes queen.”
Kamala Harris, the first-ever presidential candidate who is both a woman and person of color, the current vice president who entered into a presidential race months late, and a woman who might have a chance to escape another four years of a second Trump presidency, has completely taken over social media. But not for any of these reasons. Harris is trending because of a 30-second clip taken out of context of her talking about a coconut tree.
Although my mom, a member of Gen-X whose social media exposure is limited to Facebook, is lost in this new world of language and memes, Ithaca College ‘24, Molly Fitzsimons, feels completely at home when Harris references memes within her campaign marketing.
“For me, ‘Kamala is brat’ is yet another way that she has shown that she cares about voters at all ages and all stages,” Fitzsimons said about Harris’ lean towards accepting the term brat as a reference towards an album released by Charli XCX this summer. “She’s not ignoring Gen-Z humor…and ‘Kamala is brat’ is such a perfect way to show that she, or at least her team, knows what we’re talking about and wants to be included in that.”
Yvette Sterbenk, associate professor of Strategic Communication, said that Harris’ strategy of embracing TikTok and meme content into her campaign aligns with what Sterbenk teaches in her classes.
“From my standpoint as a strategist, she is doing exactly what we teach our students to do, which is to figure out who her audiences are and where each audience is and what kind of content appeals to them,” Sterbenk said.
Sterbenk also said that in comparison to other political figure’s past attempts at using social media, Harris is able to connect with a younger generation in a more effective, natural way.
“I think Kamala Harris just has a more natural presence on social media,” Sterbenk said. “My sense is that she’s walking a good line of taking advantage of the memes and also using them
to make a statement.”
But, while trending sound bites of coconut trees and quick catchphrases might gain Harris mass attention on social media, this doesn’t entirely translate to mass amounts of people understanding what is happening within her political campaign.
“Unfortunately, I do think that much of Gen Z, or just generations that use social media to stay informed, do not fully understand what’s going on in the political sphere,” Fitzsimons said.
Fitzsimons mentioned that as much as she loves that Harris is catering to a younger audience through TikToks and memes, this also translates to a large portion of people only getting their political information from these memes, which may lean into other potential issues.
Juan Arroyo, assistant professor in the Politics Department, echoed this unease.
“It’s entertaining…It gets our attention for a moment, but to me, it’s a big distraction from the actual problems that we need to solve,” Arroyo said. “I really appreciate the creativity of people who create the memes…but in the end, you know, what are we voting this person into office for, to implement memes or to implement actual policy to address certain problems?”
Arroyo said that the format of social media, which often is very condensed, doesn’t lend itself to dialogue, debate, or in-depth knowledge of complex political conversations. With a growing population of younger voters relying solely on social media for political news, this translates to a wave of misinformation and disinformation.
“My only recommendation of that is, yes, be on your social media…but also purposely look outside of your social media for other perspectives,” Arroyo said.
From a generational standpoint, many of the people I spoke to echoed that it is far more common for the older generation to take the extra step to look at other forms of media and news than it is among a younger crowd, who might be more prone to passive scrolling. In the same sense, there is an argument that Kamala Harris’ campaign strategy of using memes is doing exactly what it set out to do: reach as much of a demographic in as short an amount of time as possible.
Despite not completely being in tune with a lot of the specific meme references that are gathering mass attention, my mom also gave Harris props for seeing social media as a tool for extending her demographic: “They’re trying to reach all levels, all generations, and really target, you know, the largest and most influential; the generation that can have the biggest impact, because you are the largest number of voters in the country right now.”
So where does this problem resolve itself? Is Harris’ strategy of amplifying memes within her own campaign doing more harm than it is good by leaning into a culture that lacks media literacy? Or, is the task of making sure her audience is consuming more than just political memes not her responsibility? Harris is doing what she can to use the culture of TikTok and memes to her benefit, while simultaneously empowering the younger generation to be more politically involved through recognition and acknowledgment. Memes and TikToks, while incredibly effective, are just one tool the Harris campaign is utilizing to gain a following before the election. Whether or not this strategy ends in a cleverly edited graphic to the Mario Kart Coconut Mall theme song or the largest turnout of young voters America has seen because a politician was finally able to meet them where they were, is ultimately up to the polls.
Kalysta is a senior journalism and English major. They can be reached at [email protected]