This summer taught us everything is... marketing

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I open my emails and a social health platform wants me to know all the reasons “why it’s not too late to Embrace Brat Summer.”

“Ready to transition from Brat to Demure? Here Are 5 Apps to Help You Do It Seamlessly!” a communications firm chimes in.

“Kamala IS Brat” insists the campaign team for the potential next President of the United States.

There’s no doubt that Charli xcx’s Brat is the album of the summer. It’s flirty, effervescent, and rebellious in all the ways that we associate with the warmer months; ‘Everything is romantic’ bumping through your ear pods as you ride a Lime bike across the city to drink hard seltzers in a park. The sun beating down on your shoulders, your lungs full of bus exhaust, armed with nothing but a Lost Mary, a dream, and a jumper for later.

The album has also been completely inescapable since its release in early June. It was cute, at first. Silly green squares, left-field celebrities like Kyle McLaughlin embracing the ‘brat’ agenda, seemingly endless remixes and clips of Charli appearing to do bumps of [redacted] behind DJ decks around the world. Now, it’s the most high profile example of how quickly things in the zeitgeist get hoovered up by commercial forces and used to push things they have absolutely nothing to do with: a healthier dating life, mindfulness apps, future heads of state.

Within a few weeks, the word “brat” went the way of all language that enters culture through content and travels rapidly through memes. It’s 2024 and every man with a strong nose is a hot rodent boyfriend, every situationship is diabolical, and every girl is demure. Brat the album will stand up on the basis of our individual relationships to it, but Brat the concept has been run into the ground. This is the way of everything now. From the “auras” on display at the Olympics to the coconut tree comments of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, the language of social media is increasingly the first point of entry to culture and politics, creating a mythology that informs the subject rather than the other way around. In other words: everything is marketing and nothing matters.

In July, a kid wearing merch for a YouTube gun channel tried to assassinate Donald Trump and we collectively dealt with it as if we were at a friend’s house, gathered around a PC in a room full of weed smoke watching someone play CS:GO. We reacted wide-eyed, in real time, and with no footing in factual reality. Even ten years ago an event like this would have felt a lot more consequential, but the speed with which things devolved into 50 Cent ‘Many Men’ edits, AI renditions of the scene with everyone turned into catboys, and memes about getting your ear pierced at Claire’s made it feel too stupid to process. It’s an objectively shocking instance of political violence that played out like an elimination episode of Love Island, and had a similarly lasting effect on day-to-day conversation – which is to say, basically none at all. It’s disorienting.

Whether it’s something alarming like a political assassination attempt, light hearted like an album cycle, or disgusting like the swathe of far right riots that swept across UK and Ireland this summer, everything has the same air of unreality. There is too much misinformation to form a coherent narrative about anything that happens on a large scale, too many memes masking our ability to process things on any meaningful emotional level. Earth-shattering events hurtle towards us like comets and disperse like clouds on impact. How many times have you learned about a celebrity death through the XxxTentacion template, or a historic news event through the Twitter account keeping tabs on things Liza Minnelli has outlived? “Is any of this even real?” director Harmony Korine asked a reporter for The Guardian recently, speaking around the release of his hyper-stylized hit man flick AGGRO DR1FT, which explores digital culture and technology through the vernacular of a first person shooter. “Is any of this even real? Like, are you really sitting there? Do you know what I’m saying?’”

The answer, increasingly, feels like “no.” What effect is this having on culture, politics, daily life, our sense of self? Nothing good. Should we be concerned about it? Definitely. Will we log off en masse in a last ditch attempt to preserve the fabric of reality and protect our sanity? Fat chance. To log off would feel like skipping an essential class before a test, missing out on the foundations that enable us to get by in fresh hell. The language of capitalism used to be English, but now it’s memes. Mama, kudos for saying that. The photo of Glen Powell smiling. “He’s sart of like an evil porson.” Brat summer is giving way to demure fall, or so I’m told – but don’t worry, there’s an app for that.

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