Harris steps into the limelight. And the coconut trees and memes have followed

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Harris steps into the limelight. And the coconut trees and memes have followed

2024-07-24 00:44 Last Updated At：00:51

If you're trying to get up to speed on Vice President Kamala Harris' swift emergence as Democrats' possible nominee this fall, you really need to know your memes.

From “brat summer” to “coconut tree," it's been a timeline full of Harris-related memes for many people since President Joe Biden exited the 2024 presidential race on Sunday and endorsed his No. 2 to lead the party.

Taking to the internet to pledge their support for her candidacy, Harris' backers, much of the time, are crafting new spins on previous online organisms that at one time had been used by Harris' detractors to throw shade.

There are also celebrities getting in the mix, with some of the association seen as a tidal wave of attention on Harris' candidacy that could help turn back American apathy for what had been a largely binary general election between Biden and GOP nominee Donald Trump.

It also could be a way for Harris' campaign to resonate with younger voters, a group Democrats need to turn out in November.

Here's a meme primer for following Harris' newly launched 2024 campaign:

Coconuts are everywhere in timeline mentions of Harris, an internet organism that began as Harris criticism and is now being embraced by her supporters.

The @KamalaHQ account bio text on X reads simply “adding context,” a reference to a much-memed speech where the vice president emphatically recalled a turn of phrase frequently used by her mother.

“She would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” Harris recollected in 2023 at a White House ceremony, clad in a mauve suit. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

At the time, the somewhat existential-sounding phrase was shared many times over by critics labeling Harris as “drunk” or “crazy.”

In the past two days, online users and politicians have latched onto the clip, sometimes sincerely and sometimes ironically, creating coconut-themed posts in support of her candidacy.

Even Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii solidified his endorsement of Harris on X by posting a photo of himself climbing a coconut tree. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis simply posted emojis for a coconut, tree and the American flag on X, too.

“Kamala has a bunch of word salad quotes that are delightfully nonsensical,” said Cory Alpert, a staffer on Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 campaign and former Biden White House advance staffer who describes himself as “chronically online."

“Like you kinda know what she’s trying to say, but it doesn’t really make sense. But it’s the perfect kind of weird authenticity that works online.”

Don't know about “brat summer” yet? Let us help.

Younger celebs are aiming to help Harris by tying her to their viral and loyal social media brands.

Most notably, pop musician Charli XCX posted on X that “kamala IS brat,” a reference to her newly released album “brat” and its rabid summer following. The post has accumulated over 35 million impressions on the app, and Harris’ campaign quickly set its X banner photo to the striking Shrek-green color of Charli’s “brat” album cover.

Viral mashups of “brat” and “coconut tree” together — playing Charli’s music over clips of the Harris quip — have spread widely as well on Instagram, X and TikTok.

And of course there are also the green “brat” T-shirts already popping up, too, as seen in X posts from Fire Island, New York.

It's OK if you're not a math scholar — you can still get this one.

“I love Venn diagrams,” Harris said during an event in 2022. “There's just something about those three circles and the analysis of where there's the intersection right?”

The Republican National Committee posted a clip of the comment on YouTube as a way to criticize Harris. But many of those commenting on the account's posts expressed their own love for the set theory tool that shows overlapping areas of similarity.

Harris' campaign has now seized on the moment, too, with her rapid response operation posting its own Venn diagram on X showing “holding Trump accountable” as the intersection of both the Biden and Harris operations.

Younger voters were already slightly more in-tune with Harris over Biden, and Alpert said those already very online people are accustomed to quickly reposting and sharing content, so maybe the Harris meme moment was meant for many of them.

“The cultural gap here is really stark between Gen Z and a lot of other groups,” Alpert said. “These little moments and lines that Gen Z are picking up and running with, other groups — especially Boomers — seem to find annoying or laughable, because they want the candidate you can get a beer with.”

Younger adults — those between the ages of 18 and 29 — had a slightly more favorable view of Harris than Biden in a July AP-NORC poll conducted after the debate but before Biden announced he was withdrawing as the Democratic nominee, although a significant share said they didn’t have an opinion.

Only about one-quarter of 18-29 year-olds had a somewhat or very favorable opinion of Biden in the poll, and about 7 in 10 had an unfavorable opinion of him. By contrast, about 4 in 10 young adults had a favorable view of Harris, while about 4 in 10 had an unfavorable view and about 2 in 10 didn’t know enough to say.

A similar share of 18-29 year-olds — around 4 in 10 — had a favorable view of Trump in the July poll, while about half had an unfavorable view and about 1 in 10 didn’t know enough to say.

Schatz, the Hawaii senator who posted an image of himself climbing a coconut tree, said that while Harris is not part of Gen Z, what Gen Z wants is not necessarily a candidate their same age, but someone who is “in the pop culture mainstream.”

“We should be winning decisively among young people, and one of the impediments, frankly, was that they didn’t see anyone speaking for Democratic Party values who they found relatable,” he told The Associated Press in an interview Monday. “Politics is definitely about policy, but it’s also about vibes, and the vibes, as the kids say, are immaculate."

Yee reported from Washington. Meg Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina. Associated Press writers Amelia Thomson Deveaux and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and James Pollard in New York contributed to this report.

Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

Deadline looms for negotiators seeking a deal for cash to curb global warming

2024-11-20 22:29 Last Updated At：22:30

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — With time running down, negotiators at the United Nations annual climate talks on Wednesday remained mired in the maze of a trillion-dollar money problem, turning to host Azerbaijan to lead the way to daylight with a promised map to be released in the dark of night.

Vulnerable nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to deal with damage from climate change and to adapt to that change, including building out their own clean-energy systems. Experts agree that at least $1 trillion is called for, but both figures are far more than the developed world has so far offered.

Negotiators are fighting over three big parts of the issue: How big the numbers are, how much is grants or loans, and who contributes.

After 10 days of talks, the host presidency of the talks, called COP29, promised a draft proposal around midnight local time, which they acknowledged will be far from final and have many decisions still to be made. But it's something, a clear step forward, said lead negotiator Yelchin Rafiyev.

German special climate envoy Jennifer Morgan late Wednesday afternoon put the onus on the COP29 presidency.

“Much is really now in the presidency’s hands and the options that they will put in front of us, the text that will come out,” Morgan said. “I think the options can help shift us into the fast lane towards a green and prosperous future or mire us in a fight about lowest common denominators.”

And the key to a solution is one word, Morgan said: Trust.

“The most critical currency right now is trust — trust in the presidency and and trust between and amongst parties,” Morgan said. “And what this effectively means is a lot of shuttle diplomacy, numerous huddles between negotiating groups.”

At a session where ministers relayed their progress Wednesday, Australia’s climate minister Chris Bowen — one of the ministers leading talks on the money goal — said that he's heard different proposals on how much cash should be in the pot. As well as the $1.3 trillion proposed by developing countries, nations proposed figures of $900 billion, $600 billion and $440 billion, he said.

Diego Pacheco Balanza, the chair of the Like-Minded Developing Countries negotiating bloc, said the group was also hearing a figure of $200 billion in negotiating corridors. That's not enough, he said. “Developed countries whose legal obligations it is to provide finance continue to shift their responsibility to developing countries,” Pacheco Balanza said.

When asked for his response to the $200 billion suggestion, Adonia Ayebare, chair of the G77 plus China negotiating group asked, “Is it a joke?” Speaking to a room of reporters, he added that negotiations need a headline figure of $1.3 trillion. “I used to be a member of the press, I know the headline is important,” he said.

But European climate envoy Wopke Hoekstra said "it is important to determine the elements first, so that you can have an informed conversation about what an ambitious and also realistic number could be.”

Elsewhere, there appeared to be some positivity on working through other issues at the talks.

South Africa's climate minister Dion George — one of two ministers leading talks on how to cut planet-warming fossil fuels — said that “all parties confirmed their commitment to delivering on the Dubai consensus reached last year” when countries pledged to transition away from fossil fuels.

Morgan said 150 nations are working “to come overcome the vocal but isolated minority trying to block progress on” reducing heat-trapping emissions and weaning the world from fossil fuels.

And New Zealand's climate minister Simon Watts was also “very encouraged” by movement on so-called Article 6, a proposal to slash emissions through, among other things, a system of carbon credits that allow nations to pollute if they offset emissions elsewhere.

But a lot was still left to work out.

Alden Meyer of the European think tank E3G summed up the state of negotiations on Wednesday by saying the word of the day at the talks is “circle… as in going around in circles."

Juan Pablo Hoffmaister of the Environmental Defense Fund said “the frustration is palpable” as time starts to run out.

Hoffmaister, who’s a former negotiator for developing countries, said that while potential climate finance goals are finally out, it’s still unclear how they will be delivered — loans, grants or other means. “We need to fix this over the next 72 hours,” he said.

Italy’s special envoy for climate change, Francesco Corvaro, said negotiations feel like they are moving in the right direction, but that it’s likely going to take extra time to reach a deal. “We can’t fail,” he said. But he stressed that Europe doesn’t have the capacity to cover the cost of climate finance alone.

Ali Mohamed, chair of the African Group of Negotiators said he hopes “that our partners will come forward with a justifiable number that will meet the needs and the the scale of the growing problems of climate change.”

Mohamed said there is a clear obligation for developed countries to support poorer countries but “up to now, we don’t seem to have a figure,” he said expressing frustration at the slow progress.

Rizwana Hasan, adviser to the Bangladesh government on environment and climate change, also slammed developed countries in a press conference, saying “the global north and the major emitting countries still lack the feeling of urgency and true commitment” on curbing climate change.

But, she said, there is reason to keep trust in process. “You can’t give up hope," she said. "Giving up hope makes no sense.”

Meanwhile, half the world away in Rio, Brazil, where the Group of 20 summit wrapped up on Tuesday, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the group of the world’s largest economies that “the success of COP29 is largely in your hands.”

“That goal, the financial goal, in its different layers, must meet the needs of developing countries, beginning with a significant increase in concessional public funds,” he said.

And the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said developed nations should consider moving their 2050 emission goals forward to 2040 or 2045.

“The G20 is responsible for 80% of greenhouse effect emissions,” he said. “Even if we are not walking the same speed, we can all take one more step.”

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.