The messy celebrity revival of 2024 is long overdue

Yet two months after the album’s release, there we were, slapping our hips to the lyrics of “Apple” and cheekily repeating the words “Brat girl summer” while everyone we knew was doing something even far, outside the limits of societal acceptability. This year, Charli did what few artists have been able to do; she captured lightning in a bottle and, with it, brought the mess of real life back into the premier league of desire.

Case in point: the star’s 32nd birthday party, which she threw in August at Los Angeles hotspot Tenants. For the occasion, a real Kid birthday girl, Charli wore blink-and-you’ll-miss-them hot pants, her now-iconic black sunglasses and dueted on stage with collaborators Billie Eilish and Lorde. Among the comrades who joined their patron saint for her birthday, there was Shiva babyIt’s Rachel Sennott, EuphoriaAlexa Demie, Sabrina Carpenter and Rosalía, who arrived at the event with a brand-worthy gift for the host: a bouquet of flowers adorned with Parliament Blues. Finally, celebrities were (sort of) getting real(ish) with us again.

Perhaps this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Celebrities, after all, are just like us, and it seems like every one of us is craving a cultural change. Perhaps we didn’t realize it would be packaged in sour apple green packaging, accompanied by a song that asks listeners to guess the color of the singer’s underwear. Gone are the days of hot yoga classes, celery juice and nicotine-free vapes; in their place were all-night dancing sessions, champagne (which Charli, of course, drank from a flute while performing her Boiler Room set in Ibiza) and Camel Blues. We want to reward the infamy and praise of those who reflect our own values. Studies have shown that we swear more than ever; once again we light up because smoking is back and more than 200,000 people descended on Worthy Farm this year to attend Glastonbury, its busiest year on record, where queues to see DJ Queen Charli on Friday evening exceeded the three hour wait. time. Let this sink in: it took longer to wait in line to watch Charli DJ than it did to get into the festival itself.

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when the who’s who of Hollywood were shamed rather than celebrated for the same activities that will define this summer. Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan are just a few of the cultural victims whose brands were penalized for their parties throughout the 2000s. But today, young Hollywood is emerging from the sanitized shadows in which it has been sequestered while its stars, literally, light up alongside us.

The essence of celebrity mayhem also resonated with people, the craving for party girl antics and pure, undiluted mayhem. Following the release of the album, Kid generated $22.5 million (£17,890,695) in media impact value, according to Launchmetrics, when searching for items in KidThe “slime green” style jumped 17% in the weeks following its release, according to global shopping platform Lyst. On TikTok, where Generation Z fully supported their new party leader, there were more than a million videos with the #Brat in a few weeks. At the time of writing this article, about six months after Brat’s release, there were a million more videos under the hashtag. When asked to define what exactly a “kids summer” is, Charli herself said it best. “It can be so trashy,” she told Nick Grimshaw in a BBC interview in June. “Like a pack of cigarettes, a Bic lighter and a white strappy top.” Audio of his interview proliferated on TikTok.

What Charli has imagined this year is a movement that goes beyond music. ‘Kid summer‘ reminded people that, despite the strained friendships and fertility battles many of us face and Charli’s words, there is nothing more liberating than accepting the mess that envelops us all. The messy omnipresence of Charli et al has let us know that we are not alone in searching for life’s impending answers, nor in wanting to momentarily drink and dance to take a break from reality, if only for a moment. night. After years of perceived perfection, he felt free to open up social media and see those in the public eye, those we follow, in all their messy glory; unedited, unfiltered and uninhibited by what has bound them for so long.

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