Why Are People Mixing Kamala Harris’s Laugh Into Pop Songs?

If you’ve been noticing more coconut emojis on your feed recently, you aren’t alone. The KHive has ditched the bee and gone coconuts now that Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 election and endorsed Kamala Harris. What’s more, Harris’s laugh is getting remixed into songs by just about every pop diva. Here are the latest remixes, as well as the response from Harris HQ.

What’s all this about a coconut tree?

In May 2023, Vice-President Kamala Harris spoke at at the swearing-in ceremony of commissioners for the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics. She wanted to emphasize that the work these people would do to help young people in education needed to reflect the greater needs of those people’s community. “[N]one of us just live in a silo. Everything is in context,” she said. Then the memed part happened.

“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?’” She said before breaking into laughter. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

Ironically, this clip was taken out of the context in which it lived and what came before it. A YouTube account called GOP War Room clipped the seg, and from there it became a meme.

But the world is so — dare we say? Coconuts — that this clip has become a rallying cry for the “coconut-pilled,” who want Harris to run. They want a Kooky Girlboss–in–Chief.

And so the coconut-pilled are working it out on the remix, adding Kamala’s laugh into the pop canon.

What songs are getting the IJBOL remix?

“Apple” — Charli XCX

“Drunk in Love” — Beyoncé f. Jay-Z

“Shake It Off (Taylor’s Version)” — Taylor Swift

“Look What You Made Me Do” — Taylor Swift

“Washing Machine Heart” -Mitski

“Coconuts” -Kim Petras

“Good Luck, Babe!” -Chappel Roan

“Hot to Go” -Chappell Roan

This is more of an interpolation than a remix, but it needs to mentioned.

Do any of the artists know this is happening? Does Kamala?

Kamal Harris kind of has bigger fish to fry right now. But if her new campaign manager is savvy, they’ll snap some of these remixes up for rallies. There are two artists who has given her seal of approval to the coconut: Kesha and Charli XCX. Kesha posted a video of her and her backup dancers performing to the remix of “Blow.” Meanwhile, Charli has tweeted that “kamala IS brat.” Is it too early to book inauguration performers?

We have reason to believe someone on Team Harris is aware of the trend. After Charli XCX expressed her support for Harris, Kamala HQ Twitter account (formerly Biden HQ) changed their header to be brat-coded.