There’s been quite a few colors that went viral in the past - Millennial Pink, Barbie Pink, the Blue Glass Craze, Psychedelic colors in the 1960s are just a few - but none have captured the zeitgeist so thoroughly and spread as quickly as Brat Green.
How did it start? On June 7, 2024, British pop singer Charli XCX released an album called ‘brat’ and the album’s cover art featured an unusual shade of green. As reported in Billboard, the singer said she picked the color because it “spark[s] a really interesting conversation about [desirability]… It had to be really unfriendly and uncool.”
As the NYT notes, “But then a funny thing happened: The intentionally repulsive color won over the internet”. Brat Green became the color of Summer 2024 and, at a pivotal time in the 2024 Presidential campaign, the color even featured in the banner for Kamala Harris’ X (Twitter) account @KamalHQ. As the NYT says, the Democratic presidential candidate strategically “memed chartreuse into an unusually potent political symbol”. The color has also been swiftly adopted across a large range of contexts including New York’s Metropolitan Transport Authority, which is currently using Brat Green as the background color for temporary signage and its Student OMNY travel pass card plus Chicago’s Department of Transport’s is using the color for its bike lanes.
Let's see how far Brat Green spreads and how long it will capture the imagination across the zeitgeist.
Online References
https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/charli-xcx-brat-billboard-cover-story-interview-1235732025/
https://x.com/ChicagoDOT/status/1808619902582018345
https://www.instagram.com/mta/