During the first week of June, I felt a buzzed calm before a wave of lime green began to take over clubs and political campaigns alike.
I was a sardine huddled within a bus in Civitavecchia, just outside of Rome, when I popped in my earbuds. My hair was sticking to the back of my neck as I itched to press play on a certain long awaited release and impending start to what is now known as Brat summer.
I’ve always liked Charli XCX. The lyrics to “Vroom Vroom” were my high school yearbook quote. Charli’s Boiler Room set backed my final exam study sessions. And I was so interested in party culture, even if I found myself feeling buried alive at the prospect of actually being a participant.
I loved staying in my room as much as I loved listening to The Dare, gushing over girls and drugs. “I’m in the club while you’re online,” he’d sing.
I was an onlooker through my screen. And though underage and not a resident of New York City, mentally I was there.
So when Brat released, I was more than ready to listen to Charli’s new music at its fullest potential during this summer’s heat waves.
But what is a brat? — I wondered in a near-Shakespearean, “What’s in a name?”
Charlotte herself defines it as, “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes.”
It’s a lot of things I’m not. I overthink too often and rarely do I go out — I often hide.
I spent much of my early teenage years away from the noise of a real life, before that noise became too overwhelming to bear and life felt over before it even started.
I study media studies at UBC; ironic as it is, the program prides itself on creating ‘media makers,’ but I often feel too bound by fear, resulting in a dry reservoir of motivation to even make the media.
You’ll seldom hear me talk in class, as my life motto has inadvertently become, “think before you say.” If I do, it’s a voice that sounds unutilized for days — girlish and parched and too afraid to say the wrong thing. It’s no surprise that upon my first Brat listen, the song I saw myself most in was "I might say something stupid."
Without question, I would trade the paralyzing feeling of not letting myself go with living the life I’ve wanted, unshackled by nerves — where I can say and do what I want with the tools I have but cannot wield. Even my own mother was rooting for my rebellion over being the chronic rule follower I am.
But that’s precisely where Brat's appeal lies, all shiny and enticing — it’s a lot of things I’m not. And that’s exciting.
I’ve always been a homebody and it's a trait that only proves to be silent but deadlier during the summer months. My skin burns easily under the sun. I feel uncomfortably sticky coming home from a five-minute walk. Mosquitos bite me in the middle of my forehead.
When I think about the essence of a ‘Brat summer’ or ‘partygirl summer,’ whatever you may call it, I think of hedonism — having your peripheral vision clouded by euphoria in a club in Ibiza. Embracing the sweaty debauchery and the messy, kind of nasty, parts.
It’s some touches of love, retrospection and a lot of fun. Vulnerability if it was on acid, neither squeaky nor clean with something for everyone.
When Brat was released, it felt like a tide had turned. Never had I seen music like this become, in real time, such a cultural phenomenon. This was on the level of Barbenheimer in 2023, when it became so synonymous to the summer at that time. Brat had become a mindset, reaching further past simply just being a good album.
For many, including me, it perhaps became an awakening. The album is like a gateway into a world away from mundanity and a summer of nothing. Of course dance music existed before this June, but never did it feel this accessible and touching toward a bigger mass as Brat did. This piece of art has made the sweltering heat a little more manageable, like a cold drink all condensed along the sides of its cup.
Even if I wasn’t hearing Brat from an Ibizan club, the heat only held my hand to take me there. Rest in peace, Brat summer.
You will be missed.
This piece was published under The Ubyssey's Creative Non-fiction Corner. Want to submit a personal essay, short story or poem? Subscribe to our features newsletter for monthly writing prompts under this column.
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