Lessons in a Brat Summer
This is your sign to let the mess in…
by calli ferguson
It’s no secret at this point that the world Charli XCX created with her sixth studio album, Brat, struck a cultural chord. We’re listening to the record, attending themed parties, and will not shut up about our Brat summers. As with any phenomenon that resonates as widely and at such volume as Brat, there's probably some deeper cultural narrative beneath the neon-green surface. And this one might have something else for us: something a bit more personal.
The concept, world-building, and marketing around Brat has been delivered to us in its IDGAF packaging in perfect timing with a rise in the “Indie Sleaze“ aesthetic. Not to mention: in a dramatic departure from the “clean girl” culture that was being SO heavily marketed to us in recent years. And honestly, we love to see a cultural clapback. But there’s something bigger here; something to the tune of a lesson in the dramatic opposition that comes in the face of insistence on perfection. When social pressure convinces us we need to do everything just right (and that there are other people who do) it becomes unsustainable. At some point, we’ll want to say “fuck it”. There is no way to keep up and, as we know, “...girl it’s SO confusing!!!”
It’s really no wonder that relief all wrapped up in unapologetic hyper-pop is going to be feverishly and happily invited into the zeitgeist. Brat tells us that (some of) the parts of ourselves we were supposed to fix or purchase our way out of are cool again. An invitation addressed to our less-polished-ness to join the party? We’ll take it.
And Charli XCX is not the only one pushing back. The messy girl is back across genre. Suki Waterhouse’s recent album, Supersad, echoes a similarly unkempt aesthetic world. The title track pre-chorus echoes the sentiment: “Wash my face, fix my hair. Swear to God, I'm over being so damn scared. I look so much better when I don't care.” She addresses the concept head-on in her British Vogue feature, and her TikTok promo sarcastically displays the text “how to achieve clean girl aesthetic” over the album’s laissez-faire bedroom editorial shoot. It’s another way into the cultural phenomenon we’re experiencing for those of us enchanted by more of a manic-pixie, 70s kind of journey. I’m so here for it.
To understand how we got here, we of course have to look to the music of a Tumblr era that walked so today’s indie sleaze could run. And the mother of that 2010 wave? Ke$ha. I want to take a second to point out the drama of having Ke$ha as the image of a movement. So I’ll just throw some of her lyrics here:
“Got that glitter on my eyes, stockings ripped all up my thighs, looking sick and sexified” | “Maybe I need some rehab, or maybe just need some sleep,” | “Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack, cause when I leave for the night, I ain't coming back.”
Ke$ha’s lyrics were SOO messy. Now, in a society full of greens powders, hot girl walks, dozen-step skincare routines, and sleepy girl mocktails, it’s a bit alarming to remember the music many of us grew up on. Alarming, and maybe, to a part in each in us, alluring. That’s not to say that we’re looking back at 2010s messy girls necessarily wanting to puke glitter, but it’s natural to envy their freedom. Ideally, what we'll find in all of this is a journey in balance. And the knowledge that such ‘balance’ looks different for each of us and might change over time.
I land at balance because the truth is, that the root of Brat summer is marketing. And there may be a point at which we come to feel like we can’t even do messy “right”, or we can’t even be brats “right”. It’s not that far out to predict that the movement that catches wind through such relief may end up holding us to a new, though different, kind of impossible standard. People- particularly women- have been marketed to (or at) this way for ages. It’s fucking exhausting. And when we look closely at this social swing, we’ll see that rigidity in any form will only work to a breaking point— when we get to let our human show, we’re gonna. We will find exhale, perhaps for now, to the tune of something like a Brat summer.
It’s the way it goes: scissors cut paper, paper covers rock, and the real human in us will always trump perfection.