What Do We Make of “Brat Summer”? 

A recent obsession emerging in the TikTok age is capturing the elusive title of “The Song of the Summer.” The hilarious irony of such a craze is that it comes at a time when music has become more accessible and customizable than ever before, meaning that having a singular song dominate a three-month stretch is extremely difficult nowadays compared to when radio stations drove music consumption. 

While I would not attempt to give a song this title, I can confidently say that Charli XCX’s album Brat makes a compelling case for the album of the summer. Praised for its catchy hooks, club-friendly production, and vulnerable lyrics, the album offers a positive experience for many music fanatics. 

Charli’s album, however, resonated far beyond the 1-2 minute tracks and proved an indication of frustrations across an entire generation of secular people. While Brat celebrates the confusion of being young, the undertones reveal a collective despair of finding anything better. 

To avoid losing sight of the album’s message and intentions, Boston College alumna and Charli XCX fan Sara Zakaria gave a brief explanation from her perspective. 

She described Brat initially in a fashion context: “I think the idea of brat is both rooted in nostalgia for the ‘indie sleaze’ aesthetic of the 2000s and a push back against the ‘clean’ aesthetic that came up in recent years; a rage against good skincare and beige clothing, which makes sense as to why the brat color is a tacky neon green.” 

Eventually, she moved past mere aesthetics to the crux of the matter. “It’s rooted in how confusing it is to be an adult in this era where our financial and social lives are wildly different from our parents when they were our age. If you’re tethered to the bad aspects of young adulthood like financial instability, [poor] dating life, inability to make big milestones like buying a house or landing a dream job or really any job in this economy, might as well tap into the good aspects of it like going out and being wild as hell.” 

The album itself bounces between bravado and paranoid insecurity, reflecting an ongoing balancing act between self-deification and a mental health crisis. The same woman who tells listeners that “It is okay to just admit that you’re jealous of me” asks herself “why [do] I want to shoot myself?” Instead of viewing this as a psychotic episode, we should see the spirit of this dichotomy as capturing Generation Z’s collective outlook on life. 

Nietzsche once said, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him…Must we ourselves not become gods simply to be worthy of it?” I think the German Philosopher accurately predicted the trajectory of the post-Christian world. 

In a new generation led by agnosticism, the replacement god is ourselves. While pride has always been a recurring sin, the vice has now hit the mainstream through hookup and party culture’s rise, and the collapse of family culture’s idea of “settling down.” 

Going further, the “talking stage” stems from a fear of giving any bit of yourself in return for what you are receiving, a phrase often abbreviated by the term “commitment.” While you might hear people complain about these issues, rarely do you hear that the system itself is the issue. The go-to is usually pinning the blame entirely on stereotypical “disloyal women” and “emotionally unavailable men,” who are themselves merely products of such a system. 

If we ourselves are the gods in this society, then we ought to be able to copy God’s actions in the book of Exodus and prove ourselves greater than the false gods around us. Social media acts as the arena for these divine wars as everyone aims to boost their status and general reputation through their online activity. 

Quite to the contrary, constantly seeing the seemingly perfect lives of others breaks the illusion of our false godliness and reminds us of our glaring human imperfections. Social disorders, mental health conditions, and body image issues run rampant within our world, and often stem from our obsession with the people we praise. 

Charli’s issues of self-image fill the album, but her most jarring comment is the opening of “Rewind,” where she reflects: “I’d go back in time to when I wasn’t insecure; to when I didn’t overanalyze my face shape. Nowadays, I only eat at the good restaurants, but honestly, I’m always thinking ‘bout my weight.” 

Women seem to deal with the gravest physical standards and the harshest criticisms when they are not met. Men, on the other hand, have lost purpose and authentic fraternity, leading to a jarring number of lonely men. The two forces pushing our society are so polar that it reveals its entire fabric is deceptive and tragic. 

While some people can roll their eyes at the album’s impulsive behaviors and quick thrills, I counter by asking what more proper response there could be from the perspective of a person who does not believe in a God in full control of reality. 

With no cross, with no salvation, with no Christ, the world is a tragedy. There is no longer any joy. Happiness, if it even exists, can only be fulfilled through forgetfulness. Therefore, embracing the rage as one moshes to electronic music from A.G. Cook brings that full happiness. Brat smight not know what truth is, but they are still tapped into their souls enough to know that the present world contains none of it. Maybe Brat contains some nihilism. But the radiant neon green offers Generation Z a glimpse of the eternally bright light originating from the Truth that lies beyond the disorder of human sin.