Harris’s campaign leaned into an expression of support from ‘Brat’ star Charli XCX (Getty)
Harris notably jumped on the “Brat summer” wagon, one of the biggest social media trends of 2024, after British pop star Charli XCX – who coined the phrase – shared a post to X/Twitter: “Kamala IS Brat.”
She has also used popular songs from Gen-Z artists such as Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, two of the biggest breakout stars of the year thanks to hits such as “Femininomenon” and “Espresso”, respectively.
“I think it was a really smart choice to not only have a DJ, but to even then utilise popular songs to galvanise [voters], creating this party atmosphere to being a lot of enthusiasm to what [a few months ago] was a really dark and dim moment in the Democratic party,” Imani M Cheers, an Associate Professor of Digital Storytelling at George Washington University, said.
She was less convinced about the impact actual endorsements from pop stars – including from Swift and Beyonce – would have on the Harris campaign, which The Independent’s David Lister wrote about this week.
“We give celebrities in the US a lot of clout, but I don’t think when it really boils down to voting on a particular issue or for a particular candidate, that having a celebrity endorsement is going to then push you into supporting that candidate if you already weren’t,” she said.
Beyonce with Harris at a campaign rally (AP)
Cheers did note that Swift, who hails from the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, has a record of encouraging voter participation. In September, she officially announced her support of Harris in an Instagram post in September and encouraged her 284 million followers to register to vote – her subsequent Instagram story with a link to the vote.gov site drew 337,826 visitors.
“I think the main way that music aids a campaign is it helps construct a sense of presidential identity,” Kajikawa said. “It places the candidate in relation to their constituents… people identify very strongly with music, because the music we like is an expression of our identity. And so music is a very effective way for presidential candidates to make connections with different groups of people.”
Trump, in contrast to Harris, has struggled with playlists for his campaign rallys due to the tendancy among liberal artists to file cease and desist orders to prevent him from using their songs.
The list of musicians objecting to Trump using their songs is now so extensive that it has its own Wikipedia page.
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Publish date : 2024-11-04 06:10:00
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