This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Jeanny Sánchez Gómez. Find them on Instagram at @jeanny_sanchez. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
There probably isn’t a person who didn’t participate in or at least encounter the idea of Brat Summer. June 7, 2024, marked the beginning of a never-ending summer party when Charli XCX dropped the neon green-colored album. Now, summer is about to begin or end? Is brat summer over, or will we experience another party-filled season?
You would think that because it had summer in the title, that the era would only last a few months at most, but much like the album itself, the era is just something you can’t get enough of.
Resonating mostly with, you guessed it, zillenials, the bright, carefree, messy, party-fueled aesthetic was something that was easy for our generation to embrace. Fueled even further by Tiktok and between dance trends and Charli herself, hopping on the app to explain that the album was made to represent her flaws and fuck ups, the fans went crazy over it.
For over half a year, the buzz over the album just didn’t stop. Quickly turning into a cultural moment, it felt like no matter where you were or who you talked to you couldn’t get away from Brat, and everyone loved it. Touring, TikTok, memes, features, Charli was everywhere.
This was a huge moment for Charli personally as well. Brat has been the peak of her career, why would she want it to end? This is what she wanted, right? In Rewind she states “I used to never think about Billboard / But now I’ve started thinkin’ again / Wonderin’ ‘bout whether I think I deserve commercial success”. She’s stated in interviews how she released this project prepared for it to fail but somehow, with the release of the album and her hopes for success for the album, it actually did numbers. The album has reached such a monumental point in pop culture that in January, it was rumored that Charli and George got married in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Making Brat included in the union of her and George.
In I Think About It All the Time, she mentions “My career feels so small in the existential scheme of it all”. Even in the remix, we get the same lyrics altered just a bit “‘Cause my career still feels small in the existential scheme of it all” meaning that even after Brat exploded and became a cultural moment, she still feels like it’s not major enough to work forever and miss out on motherhood. I wonder if she wants this era to end and to stop touring this album or if she is in love with it as much as we are because she says “But there’s so much guilt involved when we stop working / ‘Cause you’re not supposed to stop when things start working, no” in “I Think About it All the Time” The remix.
Through the remixes, we can already see that she has already been flirting with the idea of what to do after the album and whether or not she wants it to end.
Then in April, with Coachella making headlines, so did Charli. Surprisingly, she wasn’t the headlining act, yet that didn’t stop her from bringing in one of the biggest crowds of the festival and turning it into Bratchella. Creating online “beef” with Green Day, the actual headliner, and bringing big-name guests onto stage, once again her performance and album went viral and was the only thing the internet could talk about. Then, of course, the clip that we have seen at this point of her singing her throwback song with Icona Pop, “I Love It” while giant screens behind her with the words “Maybe it’s time for a different type of summer?” before showing a list of artists that have either recently released projects or about to, inlcuding PinkPatheress, Haim, Kali Uchis, Ethel Cain, Turnstile, A$AP Rocky, and my personal favorite on the list, Lorde, who only just announced her upcoming album Virgen, set to release in June.
I can’t lie, it feels like genius marketing, having millions of people talking about these artists she mentioned and getting the fans to speculate about what will be released later this year, while simultaneously getting everyone to keep streaming her album religiously because they don’t want it to end.
Despite the shout-outs, the last message shown to the crowd read: “ Does this mean brat summer is finally over???? .. IDK?.. Maybe? I don’t know who I am if it’s over???.. Wait I remembered.. I’m Charli XCX and honestly, I just want this moment to last forever..PLEASE DON’T LET IT BE OVER” All this really did was just start the hype all over again, and honestly who can blame her, no one wants it to be over. Do you think this is a message from Charli or from the record label encouraging Brat Summer to go on forever?
Teasing the end of the era, only continued as her arena tour started. On night one of her tour, you could hear the arena gasp when she revealed a huge brat banner with the name scribbled out before she tore it down, the crowd went wild and it was so fun to be there in person to see it.
But the album change wasn’t just present on stage, as shortly after the album covers on Apple Music and Spotify changed to this version too causing speculation to pick up again as fans tried to guess whether she would release another remixed version as a final goodbye to the era.
With all the attention and hype that the album has created since last year, will brat summer truly end? There was already talk about it ending last summer when the album was originally dropped, yet it kept going. Will it do the same this year? Or will the internet be ready for the next cultural movement? As much as we all love Brat, will another album change our minds and bring a different vibe for this year’s summer? We’ll all find out soon enough as summer approaches, but meanwhile speculating is fun to do.
Do you think Brat Summer is over? Leave a comment below?
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