Lime green has been having a moment, and you can thank Charli XCX’s hit album, “Brat,” for that.
The 32-year-old singer is part of a clue for The New York Times’ mini crossword on Sept. 23, highlighting the album’s relevance it has maintained since its release on June 7.
“2024 Charli XCX album with a lime green cover,” the clue reads.
For the past three months, the “brat” aesthetic (including its signature Arial font) has been seemingly everywhere, from slime green merch to marketing campaigns.
The high-energy dance pop album touches on partying, Von Dutch and womanhood, to name a few themes, and has inspired TikTok dances, memes and fashion trends, leading very online fans to coin the term “brat summer.”
With its messy, carefree vibe, brat summer borrows elements from other similar TikTok trends like feral girl summer and rat girl summer.
Having evolved from the now-iconic album cover to a whole aesthetic, “brat” is now a lifestyle embraced by Gen Z and millennials alike.
And brat summer didn’t end on the autumnal equinox. Earlier this month, the singer announced the highly anticipated remix album titled “Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat,” which is set to release on Oct. 11.
Charli XCX is also taking the brat aesthetic on the road as she performs her co-headline arena show with Australian singer Troye Sivan on the North American “Sweat“tour, which began in Detroit on Sept. 14 and ends in Seattle on Oct. 23.
Does this mean brat summer will extend into brat autumn? Here’s everything you need to know about the trend, from viral dances to unexpected collabs.
What is Brat Summer?
The brat summer trend is inspired by British singer Charli XCX’s hit album “brat” which was released on June 7 and debuted at #3 on the Billboard charts.
Fans were particularly taken by the album’s distinctive yet minimalistic cover art: “brat” written in low-res font on a lime green background.
Soon after the album’s release, Gen Z christened it the season of the brat, an aesthetic trend defined by party animal antics, cool-girl style, and lime green everything.
The trend quickly took over TikTok, with 41.2K posts under the hashtag #bratsummer.
While the word “brat” usually evokes feelings of middle school angst, brat summer is all about accepting your imperfections while embracing the chaos.
In an Instagram post on June 8, Charli XCX described the “brat” album ethos as “me, my flaws, my f— ups, my ego all rolled into one.”
She further explained the meaning of “brat” in a TikTok video.
“You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. Who feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like, parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat,” she said in the video.
Brat Summer Trends
“Brat green” quickly became the color of the season, a far cry from last summer’s ubiquitous Barbie pink.
For some New Yorkers, brat green is inescapable: Charli XCX kicked off the “brat” album release with a live performance in front of a giant green wall in Williamsburg.
Since then, the brat wall has been repainted to promote remixes and deluxe editions of the album (“brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not”) before posting its final message, “ok, bye!” on July 2.
Beyond the official album merch — including, naturally, a lime-green crop top emblazoned with “brat” in giant, low-res letters — the brat ethos has also infiltrated summer fashion.
Charli XCX described the brat fashion aesthetic in an interview with “The News Movement” on June 10.
“It can be like, so trashy,” she said. “Just like a pack of cigs and and a Bic lighter. And like, a strappy white top with no bra. That’s like, kind of all you need.”
The “brat” aesthetic is a far cry from the “clean girl” trend that dominated viral fashion in 2022. It celebrates sweaty, party-girl chaos: smudged eyeliner, grungy street style, and plenty of Y2K inspiration.
Brat, TikTok and the Viral “Apple” Dance
One of the most viral brat trends on TikTok is a high-energy dance routine to the song “Apple” from the album.
TikTok creator Kelley Heyer, a longtime Charli XCX fan, created a dance routine to “Apple” that quickly went viral among the singer’s fan base.
Watching her dance go viral has been “amazing and at times overwhelming,” she tells TODAY.com.
While “Apple” has been one of the album’s biggest breakout hits, the popular track almost didn’t make it onto “brat,” according to Charli XCX.
“a little secret apple nearly didn’t make the cut on the final tracklist… imagine lol. anyways it’s her world and we’re just living in it!!” Charli XCX wrote in an Instagram post on July 16.
Charli XCX herself has posted several TikTok videos of herself performing Heyer’s “Apple” dance.
Heyer was “starstruck” to see her idol performing her choreography.
“It makes me so happy,” Heyer says. “It’s so cool how everyone has elevated my dance into something so much bigger.”
To Heyer, “brat is everything.” The brat ethos, as she describes it, involves elements of partying, authenticity and community.
“Brat is party, brat is fun, brat is messy, brat is sexy. Brat can be anything,” she says.
“Brat” Remixes and Deluxe Versions
Charli XCX has kept the brat summer momentum going with multiple “brat” remixes and re-releases.
Just three days after “brat” dropped on June 7, Charli XCX released a deluxe version of the album called “brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not.”
The deluxe album included three new tracks, “Hello goodbye,” “Guess,” and “Spring breakers.”
Charli XCX released a surprise remix of “Girl, So Confusing” featuring Lorde on June 21.
The remix addresses the rumored tension between the two singers before they decided to “work it out on the remix.”
Charli XCX shared a screenshot of a text message from Lorde with the lyrics to her verse in an Instagram post on June 21.
On August 1, Charli XCX released a remix of “Guess” featuring another high-profile singer: Billie Eilish. Eilish’s verse and the accompanying music video teased the singer’s romantic interest in Charli XCX.
What does “Kamala is brat” mean?
Beyond outfit checks and viral dances, the brat summer trend transcended TikTok fame to become associated with an unlikely figure: Vice President Kamala Harris.
Shortly after President Biden announced he was withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election, Charli XCX expressed her support for Vice President Kamala Harris by complimenting her in an X post:
The post, which currently has nearly 48 million views, made the rounds on social media and spurred a multitude of posts that paired videos of Vice President Harris with songs from “brat.”
Many of those videos also incorporate the “coconut tree” meme inspired by a quote from one of Harris’ past speeches.
Harris’ campaign team has also embraced the brat memes.
The Kamala HQ campaign account on X changed their banner to mimic the “brat” album cover art, with “kamala hq” written in low-res text on a lime green background.
On Instagram, the Kamala HQ account made a post inspired by the brat aesthetic, including a screenshot of Charli XCX’s original X post in the slideshow.
“And when we put this to bed the internet will go crazy,” the post’s caption reads.
The rapidly-growing “brat” discourse has even moved from social media to mainstream political discussion.
Rachel Maddow addressed the brat memes in a July 22 interview with Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar on MSNBC.
“Last night, Charli XCX tweeted ‘Kamala is brat,’” Maddow said. “To be totally honest with you, I’m not totally sure what that means.”
Is “brat summer” over?
Despite brat summer’s popularity, several news sites published articles speculating that the trend was waning.
Charli XCX seemingly responded to the narrative in an Instagram post on July 25 featuring several of the headlines.
“oh ? see u next week :)” she captioned the post.
Luckily for “brat” fans, Charli XCX shows no signs of slowing down.
The singer is co-headlining “Sweat,” a concert tour of North America, with Troye Sivan. The tour will spotlight songs from “brat” and Sivan’s album “Something to Give Each Other.”
Based on her Instagram posts, Charli XCX had been keeping busy prior to the tour, performing DJ sets in Ibiza and rehearsing her “Sweat” tour choreo.
“brat summer is only just beginning :)” the singer wrote on X.
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