Words We’re Watching: ‘Brat’

Is 'brat' doing a '360'? We think about it all the time.

“Hot Girl Summer” is so 2019. The summer of 2024 is “Brat Summer.”

Before cased-meat enthusiasts get too excited, however, the brat in question is not the one that’s short for bratwurst. But neither does it appear to exactly be the brat that refers to an ill-mannered, annoying child. Nay, this brat is neither grill-worthy nor timeout-worthy, but a secret, third thing. Just what is it communicating, and to whom?

If you’re not already tuned into brat, it’s the title (styled lower-case in a sans-serif typeface against an already iconic lime green background on the cover) of pop star Charli XCX’s sixth album, which was released in early June of 2024. In a video from her official TikTok account posted on July 1 and captioned “what it means to be a brat,” the singer explains that her conception of a brat is someone who is “like that girl who … likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. Who, like, feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown, but kind of like parties through it, is very honest, very blunt, a little bit volatile…”

Now, you might be thinking that Charli XCX’s explanation merely represents an extrapolation of another sense of brat covered by our dictionary: “an ill-mannered immature person.” And you may be right. But here’s where it gets interesting; she goes on to say in the clip: “But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.”

Nouns become adjectives in English all the time, often by adding a suffix like -y or -ish. Purple becomes purplish , sleep becomes sleepy , winter becomes wintry. And, yes, brat becomes bratty and the less common brattish, both meaning “suggestive of a brat.” But Charli XCX appends neither ish nor y to brat in her otherwise adjectival constructions. It’s just straight-up brat.

Similarly, and in the wake of the album’s mega-success, seemingly everything and everyone under the sun is being described on social media as being “brat” or even “so brat.” Just a few we have encountered:

She is so brat. M. Night Shyamalan is brat. Earphones are so brat. My dog is brat. This song is so brat.

And, of course, there’s Charli XCX’s viral July 21 post on X.com (nee Twitter) referencing current vice president and now-also presidential candidate Kamala Harris:

kamala IS brat

Both the Harris campaign and its supporters, in turn, ran with it, turning out memes at a rapid pace that traded on the mega-popularity of the pop star and her newest album. But was Charli XCX suggesting that Vice President Harris is a) a brat as we know from existing definitions, b) a brat as elaborated upon by XCX herself, or c) bratty/brattish? In an Atlantic article about the phenomenon, Shirley Li suggests something else is going on:

The essence of “brat” is not defining people as such; it’s being simultaneously provocative and vulnerable—a quality that XCX perhaps sees in Harris and her campaign.
— Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 23 July 2024

It’s too early to tell if a new sense of an adjective (or noun, for that matter) is developing that will eventually settle into suggesting a blend of provocation and vulnerability, but we’ll be keeping an eye on whatever happens.

Words We're Watching talks about words we are increasingly seeing in use but that have not yet met our criteria for entry.