Wait a minute! I thought I was having a summer of brats: a carnival of bacchanalian excess. The mood was set by British pop singer Charli XCX, codified by her chartreuse-colored album brat and popularized on social media. Right now I’m supposed to live like a selfish teenager, tear the patriarchy to pieces, and “most importantly” have fun.
But just as I was fully immersed in brat mode, another coda came along that was more prescriptive, very sober, and rather mild. This one comes from Jools Lebron, a transgender woman and TikTok influencer who has made waves on social media with her videos promoting a new kind of feminine aesthetic that is all about looking “modest.”
The original video has now been viewed around 40 million times on TikTok and has subsequently inspired tens of millions of hashtags. “I don’t look like a clown when I go to work,” says Lebron, who until recently worked at a grocery store in Illinois but has already made enough money from her newfound fame to complete her sex change surgery. “I’m very careful when I’m at work. See how I look very presentable – the way I came to the interview, I go to work. A lot of you girls go to the interview looking like Marge Simpson and go to work looking like Patty and Selma. Not demure… You see my shirt: just a little bit of chee-chee showing, not my chu-chu (lexicographers still debate the meaning of ‘chu-chu’). Remember why they hired you.”
The videos themselves are a strange mix. On the one hand, they satirize the current “quiet fashion” convention, in which boring women mimic the late Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy in taupe cashmere layers and $1,000 flip-flops. They also play on another confusing femininity stereotype on TikTok, the #tradwife, an extremely demure expression of femininity — particularly popular among Mormon influencers who have embraced the old maxim that women should be pregnant, barefoot and in front of the stove.
On the other hand, Lebron seems to advocate the “low key” mode as her practice. In her recent interview with legendary American drag queen RuPaul, Lebron said, “I feel like low key is a state of mind. I used to be crazy and out of control, and then I found some low key, and with that came success.”
Of course, you’re probably wondering: What the hell is going on here? You probably have better things to do than look at silly TikTok summer memes.
But for members of Team Kamala at the Democratic National Convention, this hodgepodge of hashtags was a gift for reaching young voters. In a U.S. presidential election that will be heavily influenced by a few million voters who have come of age since 2020, “modesty” at the ballot box could well be a factor.
There are an estimated 150 million TikTok users in the US, and according to a study by the Pew Research Center, the proportion of 18- to 29-year-olds who get their news from TikTok has risen to 52 percent. Of these, most TikTok users are Democratic voters, a number so significant that US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was recently able to tell Bloomberg that shutting down the Chinese platform, as has been discussed, would cause the Democratic Party to “lose literally every voter under 35.”
Team Harris has seen a massive surge in popularity since tapping into the @kamalahq meme machine on TikTok. Along with the Charli XCX “Kamala is a brat” ad, Harris’ social media team hasn’t missed an opportunity to prove how relevant the presidential candidate is. There were plenty of moments in Chicago this week when she could be found “very understated, very attentive” in her tan Chloé suit. Indeed, her sobriety is a marked difference compared to the grotesque styles of Mr Trump and Mr Vance: The author of Hillbilly Elegy seems far more likely that he will apply a “green crease,” as LeBron calls it, before his performance than Harris would.
And Harris is “very conscious” of the increased interest among young people. Last weekend, it was reported that her campaign is spending $370 million on ads between September and the election. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the campaign revealed that $200 million will go to digital platforms, though that figure does not include social media ad buys.
Harris has run the gamut of brats so far. She embodies joy. Unlike Hillary Clinton, who never really got a handle on humor, Chucklin’ Kamala is all about the fun. For the emotionally-charged Gen Z voters, these things are deeply appealing; perhaps meme empathy is a more valuable commodity today than political awareness. Besides, if you’re serious about protecting reproductive freedoms or curbing gun violence, it helps to lighten the occasion with the odd coconut gag. Memes are the great social sedative of the 2020s—they soothe divisions and unite the troops. No wonder we’re all jumping on these great brat currents, desperately trying to stay relevant and keep our heads above water.
These are strange times for representation of women. And, frankly, men too—this summer they were lumped into weird categories like #Sportsdad and #Rodentmen. I’m an #AlmondMommy (according to my daughter: very toxic, not very mindful) who can’t even do #GirlMath and prays I’m not a #PickmeGuy. None of these things are particularly uplifting. Or intellectually nourishing. But they speak a certain truth.
“Low key,” as Lebron describes it, is actually a pretty good rubric for any human being. At its core, it’s admonishing us to be respectful and consider other people’s feelings. And to keep our chu-chus under wraps. It’s very low key, very cute, and very considerate. Ultimately, I think that’s #ratherchic.
Send Jo an email at [email protected]
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