4 TikTok topics trending among Gen Z and what they mean for marketers: Brat, Olympics, and more

This year, we’re in a Brat girl summer. The lime green trend used by Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign joins a handful of other trends going viral this summer. Marketers may be too late to capitalize with their own content, but there are still important takeaways from these TikTok trends that advertisers can apply long after the trends become outdated.

1. Brat

Brat is an album by British pop artist Charli XCX that has become a viral phenomenon. The Brat trend is the use of lime green, hyperpop edits of videos, and a viral dance set to the song “Apple.”

The trend blew up when Kamala Harris announced her bid for president and rebranded the Biden campaign X profile to “Kamala HQ,” complete with a lime green header mimicking the album’s original cover art. Charli XCX responded by posting, “kamala IS brat.”

Since then, fan-generated videos of Harris saying “you think you just fell out of a coconut tree” set to songs from Brat have gone viral, leading the Brat trend (and Harris’s campaign) to use coconut emojis (🥥) and the term “coconut-pilled.”

Source: Kamala HQ on X

The trend shows the importance of good branding. The Brat album aesthetic is easily identifiable through its iconic shade of green and its lowercase design, which is easily replicable in user-generated content. The trend also shows TikTok users’ magnetism toward low production value and authenticity, as evidenced by the album cover and the responding memes’ minimalist design.

It may be too late in Brat’s cycle of virality for marketers to capitalize on the trend, but Brat’s understated aesthetic and authentic style will outlive the trend on TikTok.

2. Boots and a slicked back bun/Gen Z boss and a mini

This July, there’s a TikTok trend where subjects hype up each others’ outfits with a chant. Chants include two specific attributes of a person’s outfit, like “boots and a slicked back bun,” as in the original post embedded below.

After the trend went viral, a beauty brand called tbh skincare posted its now-deleted version, where people chant “Gen Z boss and a mini” to hype up its own employees’ outfits in the hopes of tapping into the trend and gaining virality.

The brand’s post faced online criticism. Some said the video was a tired example of a brand inauthentically capitalizing on a trend to turn a profit, with commenters calling it “cringe” and “corporate.” It also faced sexist hate from viewers saying “just get back to the kitchen” and “bring back gender pay back.” The company successfully clapped back to those comments in another viral video turning those comments into their own chants. The response was a good example of a brand responding to bad-faith criticism in a way that made them even more viral, and incorporated the trend once more.

The lesson here is that it will always be challenging for marketers to participate in meme culture without seeming inauthentic. But finding a way to add something new to the conversation and standing by brand identity and values even in the face of criticism can help brands come out on top.

3. Underconsumption core

Videos of creators boasting that they use products until they are all gone or wear the same clothes repeatedly have been going viral on TikTok. Like “de-influencing” before it, underconsumption core videos push back against the consumerism often pushed by the creator economy. The videos show Gen Z’s interest in sustainability and hesitation toward over-consuming and over-spending.

Like the other trends listed above, this isn’t necessarily something marketers should participate in, especially because social media marketers have a goal of selling products. But they should take notice of how underconsumption core reflects Gen Z’s interest in longer-lasting, environmentally friendly purchases.

4. Everything Olympics

The Olympics aren’t just a TikTok trend, but content surrounding the Games has infiltrated TikTok from fans and athletes alike. This year 1.037 billion people worldwide are TikTok users, up from 836.8 million who used the platform during the 2022 Winter Olympics, per our forecast.

Many Olympians are also TikTok creators, offering fans a glimpse at what daily life is like in the Olympic Village.

Unlike the other trends in this story, brands can take advantage of Olympics content now without seeming “cringe.” Fast-moving brands can take advantage of partnerships with athletes who may previously have been unknown but now have a big audience on TikTok.

This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.