“I am everywhere I am so Julia” or the "late capitalism" generation.

H.Morales P

“You're that girl who is a bit messy and loves to party and maybe says dumb things sometimes. She's honest, blunt, and a little bit volatile. That's Brat.” - Charli xcx

Charli xcx’s new album has blown up the internet. It’s become such a phenomenon that some people have said that there’s a before and after Brat in music and pop culture. I agree. If you were a kid in 1995, you probably lived through the time when emo-punk and bands like Paramore and My Chemical Romance were just emerging. The punk scene exploded because it portrayed something that was there, present in the generation. The lyrics, the guitars, and the blurred boundaries between punk and pop offered young people something inspired and new. But Charli xcx is not Hayley Williams, and she certainly can’t be considered Lorde or Billie Eilish. Charli is making movement music. That was exactly the answer given by Charly García, one of the most important rock stars in Argentina and Latin America, when he was asked why he became so popular: “I make movement music”. 

“I am everywhere I’m so Julia” will probably be remembered by this generation. I mean, we still get goosebumps when we sing “I must confess that my loneliness is killing me know” from Britney’s hit Baby one more time. 360 is amazing. This song is breaking the charts not only because of its catchy beats and transitions. The song nicely describes a world where the images we see every day have become fundamental ingredients in the way we shape our personal identities, and of course this desire to be Julia Fox: to be everywhere.

Social media is the microcosm where all this happens. “I went my own way and I made it, I am your favorite reference, baby” is the way Charli talks about this ultimate desire produced by the social media dynamic of going viral. Going viral is the desire to be seen; to become a “reference” capable of taking an active role in producing an influence on others. If seeing on social media is consuming, then being seen, going viral, is producing: the desire to produce others. Charli seems to be aware of it, when the chorus goes “when you are in the mirror, do you like what you see? When you are in the mirror, you are just looking at me, I am everywhere, I’m so Julia”. Isn't that crazy? Charli is talking about how powerful this is. Basically, the girl is saying that we are just a product of their symbolic power that show us the way we should be. Julia is them. 

Everything is romantic is one of my favorite songs of the album, I must admit. The slow intro and the melodic sounds of an orchestra are beautiful elements. But there is something that really leaves me perplexed: the way Charli sings. It really gives the impression of something repetitive, a very automatic way typical of a machine. However, far from trying to perform the digital age of computers and AI, the way she is singing sounds like the experience of someone facing a life that moves at a thousand miles per hour. At least compared to the generation of our parents. Isn't that the way we would describe the experience of our generation? Something that is not fixed or attached to some specific person, object or idea (or ideology)?  Aren't we in a constant search for pleasure for what we have not yet consumed? The minute 0:51 is even crazier.

But the part that really hits me is “In a place that can make you change, fall in love again and again”. With this, Charli condenses the way in which our generation experiences the consequences of late capitalism: our identities are split, and we see ourselves made of contradictions. The rapid changes in the productive sphere and work environments where people had previously found a space for identity construction, but also the fact that economy has changed radically, generates uncertainty regarding the future. If a job was a ticket to access to a set of ideas, political sometimes, and resources, the objective changes in capitalism have had an impact on our expectations. At the same time, social media brings our bodies closer and allows us to experience non-communicative interactions in an accelerated way that we would not have previously had. We are confronted with multiple Julias all the time. It allows us to confront distant people and see a fragment of their limited experiences and limited representations of the world: It allows us to see more. It makes us feel that we cannot just settle for anything, not even our personal identity. We want more. We want what is considered trendy. 

Falling in love again and again is this constant feeling of seeking change. In a world that makes us change, we change with it. We desire what is not fixed, or rather, we want something more we don't already have. Falling in love again and again is the way the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman had described what he named as liquid love. Everything is romantic because we want that thrill of affection that can only be filled by the constant exchange of someone to love, following Slavoj Zizek´s reflections. Relationship's stability became underestimated. Love is the object of desire, in Lacanian terms, rather than the person to love. The desire to love is that we don't aim to achieve, because achieving it breaks with the desire itself. We need that “again and again”. We become strong sensations collectors. 

365 is catchy, isn't it? I mean, it sounds energetic. It's not a coincidence that the song was placed at least on the album. Think about it. You are in the club or at the rave, some chains, black clothes, cool glasses and bumping. The speed of the rhythm, the beats and the base go hand in hand with the way we experience our changing life in a changing world. The transitions in music are the way we move through and inhabit our lives. The way the club is constructed - I'm not talking about the place but the idea of the club instead- it becomes a space where we can be able to perform the way we feel and see ourselves in that moment. Where we can unfold our desire for pleasure. It is not about sex, which most of the time is being related with the notion of pleasure, but about feeling. In a world that became meaningless, we rather feel and desire again and again. Beats and base again and again. 

The green essence of being a 365 brat party girl is just an allusion to the way our generation is coping with this changing world. When Charli sings “Who the fuck are you? I'm a brat when I'm bumpin' that. Now I wanna hear my track, are you bumpin' that? 'Til the windows crack, I'll be (bumpin' that). No, I never go home, don't sleep, don't eat. Just do it on repeat, keep (bumpin' that)”, she describes who the fuck she thinks she is. That is, she describes a part of her identity based on this spiral of repeating “never go home, don't sleep…just do it on repeat” which seems to be the path to obtain pleasure. The object of pleasure can not be obtained, because pleasure is the path itself. That is why repetition is crucial. Charli and our generation embraces the brat attitude, which is predominantly the way we inhabit the club, a place that helps us to describe our spirit (ethos) more than the workplace. We embody the club as a metaphor of the path to the pursuit of pleasure. We are the club and we go through our lives with it. Charli's genius is to introduce this subaltern world into pop music culture.

By the way, there is a song I like a lot and that can be very illustrative of what I have said so far, and from where we can notice the contradictions of living a constant Brat summer. B2b is crazy. With the characteristic sounds of the album, full of joy and melodic rhythm, Charli sings about going back. The whole song is full of these “back to, back to” while she describes the doubts about getting back together with someone or not. At the minute 1:48 she introduces a beautiful transition and a changing of rhythm and sings “took a long time breaking myself dow, building myself up, repeating it”. The element of repetition is there again, but this time with another meaning, or at least that is what it seems. 

If falling in love again and again is a response to this changing world that makes us not attach ourselves to something or someone, we still suffer the consequences of the liquid love. Being a Brat doesn't ensure avoiding this suffering,  “breaking myself down, breaking myself up”. However, what seems to be a contradiction is in fact an essence of  Brat-ness. This element is present throughout Charli xcx’'s entire album. She allows herself to be wild, but vulnerable at the same time. Ohhh.. I had forgotten. She plays with this term B2b , which in the corporate world means business-to-business. I find it very poetic. 

I might say something stupid, the slowest song of the album, is even more important in expressing this apparent contradictions experienced by our brat generation. Charlie describes this experience of being torn in the middle of the party. When she sings “I might say something stupid, talk to myself in the mirror, wear these clothes as disguise, just to re-enter the party… I go so cold, ‘cause I don't know if I belong here anymore”, she describes this feeling of not knowing if we are in the right place. Furthermore, she speaks about the essence of our generation: the lack of a fixed sense of belonging. In a world that makes us change, we change constantly. Our identity is torn apart, like Charli in the middle of the party. Even if we find ourselves in the club, the place that shapes part of our identity, we doubt its meaning. 

The next verse is even more significant. She sings “I don't feel like nothing special, i snag my tights out on the lawn chair. Guess I'm a mess and play the role, used to live just for the party” and i can just explode. I mean, isn't she describing exactly the impossibility of “catching” the object of desire? Isn't she being aware of that performative way of playing a role, “wear these clothes as disguise”? It's like the only way to get pleasure is to party, but in the middle of the party we don't feel anything special, because we don't get pleasure as something we can collect. We live the pleasure. We experience it again and again. We hesitate, but we come back because, as Charli says, “Door is open”. The door is that symbolic way to say that even if we are tired, we can just take a breath, look at the mirror, and repeat. But, the party must go on. 

Mental health is a topic that can be found all over Brat. I mean, our generation is suffering from high rates of anxiety and depression, and we want to talk about it. It's not a coincidence that this changes appears in a late phase of capitalism. I think I have described it before and we can easily make the connection of that with mental issues. In that sense, Charli doesn't talk about the topic itself, but she sings about situations where we can hear a mix of different emotions being described while the beats sound. I really love the way she does it. Hayley Williams in an article said that psychology is interesting, depression is devastating. Charli doesn't talk about depression like giving and interview in front of the public, and we don't have to expect it. She describes being depressed in the middle of the party. She describes these hedonist - depressed characteristics of our generation while she sings.  

In sympathy is a knife, Charli talks about this feeling of being in a situation with someone who makes us uncomfortable and where we can not fake sympathy, “‘’cause I couldn't even be her if I tried, I'm opposite, I'm on the other side, I feel all these feelings I can't control”.  However, in the song So I, Charli shows the feeling of being reminded of someone you could count on, even, and specially, to cry. She is showing the vulnerable part of being a 365 party girl. “You're a hero and a human, track was gone, I'd make excuses. You would say, "Come on, stay for dinner". I'd say, "No, I'm fine””. I think is cool how we can find those elements of softness in the midst of the madness. That is again the essence of being Brat though. It is hard to pretend that we are not bothered by someone's presence, but at the same is easy to delve into memories of someone we used to love. In a world that has changed, the expected roles of being a girl have also changed. Charli does not always want to smile.

The Charli xcx album is a piece of art not just because it portrays the spirit of a generation, but because she expresses precisely that spirit. The same that makes this generation not want to talk about it, because our parents expectations are so different. She is being super honest. We are proud, but at the same time we are ashamed: we have our being divided, full of contradictions as I said. In the song I Think About It All Time, Charli talks about this feeling that time is running out in relation to pre-established expectations for what is considered "normal": having a career, having a family, having children. Even if the Brat generation has internalized the "club" as a place of identity and a place for the display of desire, the encounter with other "worlds" outside the club makes Charli look for the door, take a breath, look at the mirror.

The expectations of having a career, stable job, family and children is the opposite of this lack of commitment to what is fixed, ideas, people, relationships, objects. However, it's not like the club is your entire being, but it is part of your identity, a strong part. We can say that certain situations make us "break character" - "Guess I'm a mess and play the role"-, take off the chains and dark clothes, whether at work, in front of our parents, or in front of our high school friend who is having a baby. For that reason, repetition is crucial: repetition is to reproduce. Charli questions herself at times if she should look for the door and not repeat. What she sings in I think about it all the time is fundamental:

I was walking around in Stockholm

Seriously thinking 'bout my future for the first time

It was ice cold, playing demos on my iPhone

I went to my friend's place and I met their baby for the first time

How sublime

What a joy, oh my, oh my

Standing there

Same old clothes she wore before, holding her child, yeah

She's a radiant mother and he's a beautiful father

And now they both know these things that I don't

I think about it all the time

That I might run out of time

But I finally met my baby

And a baby might be mine

'Cause maybe one day I might

If I don't run out of time

Would it make me miss all my freedom?

And they're exactly the same, but they're different now

And I'm so scared I'm missin' out on something

So, we had a conversation on the way home

Should I stop my birth control?

'Cause my career feels so small in the existential scheme of it all

Well, yes brat is the album. It is not about one song, it is the whole composition. It is not just about a 365 party girl. It is that this girl is describing one generation very well. Mark Fisher says that in capitalist realism, what some have called as postmodern society, depression is part of our reality, an the search for pleasure has become one of our purposes, or the only one. It is when Fisher talks about permissive hedonism, when Charli xcx enters the scene. Charli is making movement music: the music of a generation.

“ What we are dealing with now is not the incorporation of materials that previously seemed to possess subversive potential, but instead, their precorporation: the pre-emptive formatting and shaping of desires, aspirations and hopes by capitalist culture” - Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism.

Hamburg 2024.