What Coconut Memes Say About Kamala Harris’s Appeal to Young Voters

To someone who has not spent a significant amount of time on social media, Colorado Governor Jared Polis’s tweet on Sunday implicitly endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris would be as comprehensible as ancient hieroglyphics. Polis posted three emojis to X, formerly known as Twitter: “🥥🌴🇺🇲.” He then ended a subsequent post providing explicit written support for Harris with the same three emojis.

Many Harris fans have added the coconut and palm tree emojis to their social media handles, a shorthand for support. Her online supporters self-describe as “coconut-pilled,” much like people who fall down right-wing internet rabbit holes became known as “red-pilled.”

Knowledge of Harris and the coconut tree went from an internet joke to important context in the wake of President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek reelection on Sunday and his endorsement of Harris moments later. Memes are important currency for the terminally online, a population largely comprised of young people who will not be reached by cable advertising or classic campaign mailers. In a political era built on vibes, internet jokes can be as significant as actual campaigning.

The coconut emoji references a now-infamous Harris quote that transformed from an ironic meme to an earnest display of support. In a speech in May last year, Harris quoted her mother. “My mother … would give us a hard time sometimes, and 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 said with a laugh. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” (The context of the comment—that she was quoting her mother—was lost when a clip of the speech went viral in February.)

The coconut reference is not the only time Harris has achieved meme fame. Another quote from her 2020 presidential campaign has taken on new life in recent weeks: “I can imagine what can be, unburdened by what has been.” Videos have sprouted on TikTok remixing her laugh to popular songs. One recent viral tweet remixed some of Harris’s most memorable quotes to a song by the pop singer Charli XCX. After Charli XCX wrote on X on Sunday that “Kamala IS brat,” a reference to her popular new album, the TikTok page for Harris’s campaign—recently rebranded from being the Biden campaign account—released a video alternating the tweet with “Kamala HQ,” with Charli’s song “Brat” playing in the background.

“When Kamala Harris is on the internet, and memeing, and in people’s faces … it only makes her more relatable, seem more tuned in to what young people are thinking and feeling, and more like a candidate that really sees our generation and can represent us well,” said Marianna Pecora, the communications director for Voters of Tomorrow, a progressive organization that aims to get young people involved in politics.

The Harris campaign has also worked to get in on the joke; the Kamala HQ X account has the description “providing context.” Its first post was a Venn diagram, apparently referencing a comment by Harris in 2022 that she “love[s] Venn diagrams,” which showed the overlap between Biden HQ and Kamala HQ as “holding Trump accountable.”

“The thing about having a candidate people are excited about is that you can actually have fun and be creative on socials, because people are going to embrace it, rather than find it embarrassing,” said Annie Wu Henry, a digital strategist who has overseen social media for Democrats such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator John Fetterman. “People don’t want to feel bad about politics. They want to have fun, they want to enjoy, they want to be excited about a candidate. There can be creativity and community.”

Not all Harris memes have been favorable. Her laugh has long faced scrutiny from those on the right, with Trump mocking it and calling her “Laughing Kamala,” a criticism that is reminiscent of the contention that women politicians are too loud or shrill.

“Have you seen her laughing? She is crazy,” Trump said in a recent rally speech. “You can tell a lot by a laugh. She is nuts.”

But even as Republicans have promoted some of her more awkward moments—the Republican National Committee used her quote about being “unburdened by what has been” in a video in December—supporters have embraced the quotes as rallying cries.

“Kamala Harris is in on the jokes that [are] being made about her, and so you can reclaim it,” said Pecora. “Donald Trump is the joke to young people.”

This is not Harris’s first rodeo as a meme muse. In 2019, a video of Harris earnestly waving goodbye to children at a migrant detention center went viral. After the 2020 election, Harris posted a video of herself calling Biden and proudly declaring, “We did it, Joe,” and the phrase quickly became a popular meme. Other Harris-centric memes have the distinct tinge of irony, hearkening to her days as California’s attorney general. A popular 2019-era meme disparaged Harris as a cop, but some Harris supporters now believe that reviving those memes portraying her as tough on crime will help her win independent voters.

Of course, memes do not translate into votes, and young people are often less likely to turn out on Election Day than older voters. Online interest is also not necessarily an indicator for electoral success; polls conducted after Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month generally show Trump narrowly leading Harris. However, the prevalence of coconut emojis may indicate an excitement that wasn’t present for Biden—or, at the very least, an ability to connect with a candidate in a semi-ironic manner.

“When young people can see the people that are going to be representing them and trying to get their votes—when they can see those people in the context of the internet in which they exist, it makes it a more accessible campaign for them,” said Pecora.