What is Brat Summer?

If your feed has been full of a particular shade of lime green recently, you are experiencing ‘brat summer’ – one of the biggest album release campaigns to hit our screens in years.

No idea what I’m yapping on about? Here’s the lowdown:

What is Brat Summer?

Brat summer is an aesthetic named after Charli XCX’s latest album ‘Brat,’ which was released last month. Fans were captivated by the album’s distinctive yet minimalistic cover art: “brat” written in low-res Arial font on a lime green background.

Where It All Began

To help promote her album, fans changed their social media profile pictures to their own names in the same low-res font on the lime green background. This naturally prompted those out of the loop to question the trend and thus find out about the new album.

Shortly after the album's release, Gen Z labelled it the season of the brat, an aesthetic defined by party girl antics, grunge style, smudged eyeliner and lime green everything.

The Viral Apple Dance Trend

The vibrant profile pictures weren’t the only trend to come from the album. TikTok creator Kelley Heyer created a dance routine to one of Brat’s songs, ‘Apple’, that quickly went viral. Charli XCX even posted multiple TikToks of herself performing the dance.

While a lot of these dance videos were made by fans, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s all free marketing. Charli’s team has been working tirelessly behind the scenes, reaching out to influencers and paying them to take part in the dance trend – as revealed by creator @maddietshiesty.

Lime Green and the Political Scene

Brat summer even transcended TikTok fame. After President Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election, Charli XCX showed her support for Vice President Kamala Harris in an X post:

This sparked yet another trend, which involved pairing videos of Vice President Harris with songs from Brat. Many of these also incorporate the “coconut tree” meme inspired by a quote from one of Harris’ past speeches.

Harris' campaign team even 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.

The Appeal of Brat Summer

Naturally, fans will always buzz over new album releases, but Brat has taken the internet by storm. With many people growing tired of the clean girl aesthetic and its unattainable standards, Brat Summer has presented a raw and messy lifestyle that fans have become enamoured with.

In her latest Vogue Singapore interview, Charli said, “I wanted to go with an offensive, off-trend shade of green to trigger the idea of something being wrong. I’d like for us to question our expectations of pop culture—why are some things considered good and acceptable, and some things deemed bad? I’m interested in the narratives behind that and I want to provoke people. I’m not doing things to be nice.”

Brands That Have Hopped onto Brat Summer Marketing

Papier

Papier were one of the first brands to hop on the Brat Summer trend, running TikTok and Meta Ads showing their customisable notebooks, designed to look like the Brat album cover.

However, fans weren’t too pleased that the green shown in the ad wasn’t the iconic lime shade

Field Roast

Field Roast, North America’s leading plant-based brand started their campaign with a social media post showing their plant-based bratwurst on a lime green background, changing the packaging to just ‘bratwurst’ in the same low res font. The brand tagged Charli XCX, asking “Is this what you meant when you said it’s a brat summer?”

However, the highlight of the campaign came during Pride weekend, when the brand unveiled a huge two-sided billboard in Yonge-Dundas Square, with ‘brat’ on one side and ‘wurst’ on the other. This nod to both the album title and their product was a hilarious and clever play on words that perfectly captured the spirit of brat summer.

Oreo

Oreo posted a mockup of their new ‘rotten apple’ flavour Oreos, playing on the Apple lyrics “I think the apple’s rotten right to the core.”

The second slide of the carousel post was a replica of Charli’s extended album, titled ‘Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not,’ instead replacing it with ‘oreo and it’s the same but it’s fake rotten apple flavor so it’s not’.

They captioned the post: ‘Rotten right to the core.'

Ritz

Ritz also jumped on the trend with a similar style post. The first slide showed the iconic Ritz crackers red box changed to lime green. The second slide said ‘ritz and it’s the same but there’s three more crackers so it’s not.’ They captioned the post ‘u gon snack if ritz made it,’.

Jansport

Jansport used the green low-res format to promote their lime-colored backpack, with a shoppable link to purchase the bag through Instagram shopping. They captioned the post, ‘don’t txt, too busy being a brat’.

Aperol Spritz

Straying from the norm, Aperol Spritz posted their name on the distinctive Aperol Spritz orange background, instead of lime green, and captioned it ‘Our brat summer. What’s yours? 🤭’

Absolut Vodka

Absolut used the brat hype to post a vodka soda recipe. The first slide mimicked the lime green original album cover style, while the second slide featured the recipe, matching the extended album style. This approach not only promoted their product but also engaged fans with content they could recreate at home.

Warner Music Singapore

Warner Music Singapore went all out for brat summer, changing their profile picture on Instagram to the green low-res font style. They've also posted various brat-themed posts, including a hiring photo, the best 'apples' in the world and edited images with brat printed all over.

Snapchat

Snapchat dropped a new premium feature, where Snapchat+ subscribers could customise their app icon to ‘snap’ in the brat album covers style.

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