Kamala Harris Joins TikTok As Campaign Sees Boost From Social Media Memes

Kamala Harris officially joined TikTok today, as her presidential campaign has seen some memes about the vice president take off on social media.

“I’ve heard that recently I’ve been on the ‘For You’ page, so I thought I would get on here myself,” Harris said in a video posted to her account this afternoon.

Harris was referring to memes about coconut trees, which comes from an anecdote she once shared about her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan. Her mother, she said, once told her, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” References to the quote have been shared on social media by Harris’ supporters.

The other reference has been to “brat,” which comes from singer Charli xcx. She wrote on X on Sunday, ater Joe Biden exited the race and endorsed Harris, “kamala IS brat.” The singer has defined the term as “honest, blunt and a little bit volatile.”

Harris’ tapping into the TikTok audience carries some risks, as the memes seemed to have been organic, and then embraced by the campaign. That can be much more powerful than content created by the campaign itself.

An Axios/Generation Lab poll showed that Harris doing better with younger voters than Biden, drawing 60% to Trump’s 40%. The split was 53% to 47% among Biden and Trump.

President Joe Biden also joined TikTok earlier this year. He later signed legislation in April that would require TikTok parent ByteDance to divest the app, or face it being banned in the U.S. on app stores.

Donald Trump joined TikTok in June and, even though he had tried to ban the app when he was president, he has since backed off that position.