The coconut tree presidency? Harris memes break the internet

Washington (AFP) – Last-minute US presidential candidate Kamala Harris is racing to craft her image -- and social media users are moving even more swiftly to signal support, flooding the internet with jokes about coconuts and "brat summers."

Harris memes have been surging for weeks as the so-called "KHive" -- her online fandom -- pushed her as an alternative to her boss, President Joe Biden, to face Donald Trump at the polls in November.

And with Biden's momentous decision Sunday to step aside and throw his support behind her, many have rallied to the vice president with a tsunami of jokes and unburdened enthusiasm.

It began, as most good summer things do, with coconuts.

Last year Harris was speaking at the White House on education when she quoted a comment her mother often made during her childhood.

"She would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us: 'I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,'" Harris said.

The oddball quote, along with clips of her dancing, her at-times awkward laughter, and some of her other slightly baffling anecdotes, became an instant data point in the -- at best, bemused -- way the internet understood Harris.

But after Biden's disastrous debate against Trump on June 27 inflamed fears about his age, prompting calls for him to step aside, the KHive asserted itself, with social media users admitting they were "coconut-pilled."

Content creators made "fancam" edits of her speeches and dancing on TikTok, and palm tree emojis were suddenly everywhere.

Bars in Washington -- always quick to capitalize on political moments -- began offering coconut-themed drinks, with pina coladas threatening a comeback.

Another of Harris's offbeat but philosophically inclined sayings -- talking about "what can be, unburdened by what has been" -- also went stratospheric as Americans, weary of the long slog between Trump and Biden, began to hope a change might really come.

By the time Biden announced he was dropping out and endorsing Harris, the memes were no longer ironic.

"Madam Vice President, we are ready to help," posted Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz above a photo of a man climbing a coconut palm, as top Democrats swiftly lined up behind Harris.

"You think I just fell out of a coconut tree?" posted Illinois Governor JB Pritzker shortly after ruling himself out as a Harris rival and endorsing her.

'kamala IS brat'

The Harris meme fever riffs on what Biden's campaign attempted to do with "Dark Brandon" -- take something that had been derogatory (Republican jokes about Biden) and flip the script.

But Biden had long struggled to win over younger voters, and some Americans saw the Dark Brandon posts as a forced, cringeworthy attempt to connect with Generation Z.

"Harris's efforts are likely to appear more authentic, maybe even fun," wrote Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic.

Still, the internet is fickle, and the Harris campaign will walk a thin line as it attempts to lock down the youth vote.

Its first deliberate attempt to do so appears to have been a success: her campaign's account rebranded itself on X with a lime green logo inspired by the album cover from singer Charli XCX's "Brat."

The album, released in June, has been a hit, with "brat" -- defined by Charli XCX as "that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe say some dumb things sometimes" -- inspiring fans to declare a "brat summer."

Encapsulating Harris's memeability, Charli XCX posted "kamala IS brat" in the hours after Biden's announcement.

"This tweet will reach more young people than a million dollar cable ad," posted one user on X.

"Brat vote secured," agreed Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost, 27.

The election remains in uncharted waters, but it all signals a broader generational shift as Biden passes the torch -- and Trump, 78, becomes the oldest presidential nominee in US history.

As Slate writer Mark Stern put it on X, "Republicans who gleefully watched Biden get destroyed on TikTok for the past year are now realizing with horror that they can't stop the Zoomer meme machine from turning Kamala into a brat summer icon.