Here’s why the viral Kamala Harris 'coconut tree' meme works for winning on the internet

It sounds like a bad joke: Vice President Kamala Harris and a coconut tree. But the meme going viral across the internet within days of President Joe Biden announcing he’s dropping out of the presidential race is a signal of support for Harris.

“Memes act as a cultural barometer online to kind of get mood,” said Dr. Jamie Cohen, Assistant Professor at Queens College and author of the forthcoming book, "Critical Internet Literacies: Reconsidering Creativity, Content, and Safety Online."

Given President Biden’s historic decision, the mood online in response to Harris launching her campaign was energetic. It was also filled with coconut emojis.

First, some context

The coconut tree meme that’s taken over the internet began as “opposition research,” said Michael Franklin, a D.C.-based communications strategist and founder of Words Normalize Behavior.

The meme includes a clip from remarks Harris gave in May 2023 to the President’s Advisory Commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics. Highlighted in the clip was a seemingly “awkward” moment when the vice president quickly breaks out into laughter before striking a serious tone.

“My mother used to, she 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 says before she laughs. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

“It's actually a really high-minded bite,” Cohen says. “She basically described the fact that we don't just exist. We exist within the context of everything around us, which is totally true.”

But the clip from her speech was not taken that way, originally.

"At first was to make fun of her because she kind of has an awkward way of delivering public speech,” Cohen says. “Many pundits saw it as a negative way of her interacting with the public, and so it became a way of people poking fun at her – especially people from the GOP.”

An X (formerly Twitter) account named RNC Research circulated the clip, and replies to the post called the vice president “unusual,” “wacky,” or accused her of being drunk.

About a week before President Biden passed the torch to Harris, the conservative website Daily Wire posted a TikTok showing “Top-4 cringeworthy moments of Kamala Harris.” The montage included several clips of Harris at speaking events, including her delivering the coconut tree quote.

But now the clip has “completely backfired,” Franklin says.

“It’s just energized folks, and folks have endearingly found it to be fabulous and fascinating,” he said.

The coconut meme has transformed into a viral symbol of the heft of Harris’ supporters, also known as the “KHive.” It is now being spread by celebrities, content creators and Democrats in social media posts racking up millions of views.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was considered a social media sensation during her first campaign, referenced the meme in a video on TikTok saying, “I don’t care if you’re falling out of a coconut tree, God bless you.” The TikTok video, posted by an AOC fan account, has over 1.5 million views.

Senator Brian Schatz said, “Madam Vice President, we are ready to help,” in a post on X that included a photo of him climbing a coconut tree. The post has nearly four million views.

Singers like Kesha and Charli XCX have further popularized the meme on TikTok and X. A remix of the vice president’s soundbite and Kesha’s 2010 hit song “TikTok” has been used over 2,800 times on TikTok, with Kesha also featuring the sound in a video that’s reached over 4 million views.

Charli XCX also declared “Kamala is brat" in a post on X, referencing a new, endearing pop culture term for a messy but authentic it-girl, and the title of the singer’s newest album. The post had over 25 million views by the next day.

The Harris campaign appeared to lean into the viral shoutout by rebranding its X account to a “brat” theme, which includes bright lime green.

Countless content creators are also using the meme in support of Harris as the likely Democratic presidential nominee. Social media posts have gleefully proclaimed “It’s coconut time baby, Joe Biden dropped out,” and rhetorically asked, “You think this resignation fell out of a coconut tree?”

How the ‘coconut tree’ meme wins

Memes are not new to presidential elections. Trump has been known to share memes and other content produced by his campaign’s meme factory. According to Cohen, a digital culture and meme expert, they work because they lack context.

“The lack of context, so to speak, is what causes a meme to be able to travel so fast,” he said. “And memes could damage people incredibly, because it's a shareable piece of media that gets into your ear like an earworm.”

While the coconut meme was initially meant to paint Vice President Harris in a negative light, it’s now served to highlight Harris’s humanity, Franklin says.

“You have the vice president telling a story about something her mom used to tell her and how that impacts what she's thinking to this day,” he said.

Harris, a former California prosecutor and 2016 presidential candidate, has been forced to strike a balance between legitimacy and likability, as do many women seeking — or already in — leadership positions.

Criticisms about her laughter, in particular, are tinged by racism and misogyny, casting her as a joke or "crazy.” This reinforces a reality for Black women who are punished for their laughter or labeled unlikable for not laughing, smiling, or appearing generally amused.

Former president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has referred to Harris as “laughing Kamala.”

“You ever watch her laugh?” Trump asked a crowd during his first campaign rally following the assassination attempt on his life.

“She's crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh,” he continued.

Two days after President Biden announced he was endorsing Harris as his replacement in the 2024 race, RNC Research posted about Harris’s “cackle,” showing a clip of her speaking and laughing at the first rally of her presidential campaign.

"In the run up to this election, we're going to see a lot of unfortunate racism and misogyny,” Cohen said. “We have to be really careful of how this meme is repurposed.”

But it appears that memes like coconut tree — which were meant to mock Harris’ laughter and awkward moments — are turning on their head when it comes to younger generations.

"What was originally seen as possibly a negative aspect now humanizes her,” Cohen said. “So, it's very much a way of relating to a younger audience who use the internet to express that awkwardness that may not be usable in physical spaces or off platform.”

The coconut meme also works because of its “shareable” emojis, Cohen adds.

“What this meme in particular has a benefit of, is it’s sunny," he said. "It has a palm tree and a coconut. So, it’s hard to make this a negative connotation.”

Franklin says memes like “Project Coconut Tree” could help Democrats seeking to attract and energize young voters, especially those who aren’t usually interested in politics.

“At the end of the day, memes are a big way that Gen-Z communicates,” he added. “And it's so important to be able to lean into them, to have a little bit of fun with them, and not take them too seriously.”

“That way it shows that you're willing to meet people where they're at with messaging,” Franklin added.

Cohen says memes that meet young people where they are tend to be unproduced.

“Young people have a good detector of BS,” he says. Therefore, when it comes to memes, don't put a heavy hand on it.”