https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/kamala-harris-coconut-tree-internet-memes-gen-z-rcna162977
To many young people on X and TikTok, the vice president is unironically funny and all too easy to meme.
According to the Urban Dictionary "coconut" is slang for a person who's brown in the outside and white on the inside. Could this meme campaign be a preemptive attempt to shield against that slur? Real question.
It’s a reference to a speech she made, you don’t have to find some cryptic dark hidden meaning in it.
It was around since before there was even a hint Biden was dropping out, and I've mostly heard it used in a complimentary, or at least lightly-ironic, manner, so I don't think it was made for that purpose.
That doesn't mean it can't serve that purpose, though.
Ooh! That’s interesting. I’ve heard other terms such as Twinkie/banana, and of course I’ve been called Oreo more times than I can count!
Let them call her a coconut. Oreo-flavored coconut for all I care. All that matters is defeating Trump and the maggats.
I think it was just another way of saying "you weren't born yesterday" i.e., you didn't just fall out the tree yesterday.
As someone who works in Trust & Safety I had the same thought. Desensitizing people to terms is important for defending vitriolic rhetoric.
My TikTok feed is covered in Kamala fancams. I've never seen anything like this (a thread)
Tiktok isn't that bad depending on the seed you get with the algorithm. Now if you don't train it at all you wind up with straight dumpster fires tho
Preface: I get what you’re saying & appreciate your comment. Sucks you’re being downvoted for an opinion.
That said… There is not a world in which I can justify having to “train” an algorithm for a social media site.
Certainly, that's the good thing about foss networks. No need to deal with an algorithm at all.
Viva La Dirt League had a fun video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUHFXnOn7mI
With Biden they had nothing on him except age so they were using his son.
With Kamala looks like they have only her laugh.
The whole coconut tree meme makes her look like she is insane, while it is taken out of context.. It is something what her mother used to say when she was little:
During a speech at the White House in May 2023 at an event for expanding opportunities for Hispanic Americans, Harris leaned on something that her mother used to say. “My mother … 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?'” said Harris, who then chuckled. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”
It doesn't make her look insane, it makes the people making some sort of deal about this look insane. Because I had to look it up and I still didn't get it and multiple people have since told me it was the same for them.
If you want to make fun of someone during an election, maybe picking some obscure moment from a speech no one listened to isn't the best tack.
I've never been a Harris fan, but her laugh is just kind of "normal human aunt" sounding to me.
I guess it sounds weird to Republican ears because it's not hyper-repressed and rigid? When a conservative tries to bring up weird laughs all that comes to mind are the likes of DeSantis or Tucker Carlson who laugh like they're having the wind stomped out of them with a steel-toed boot.
I guess it sounds weird to Republican ears because it’s not hyper-repressed and rigid
Feminine joy is something they've never experienced before, and it scares them.
They did the same thing with that video of AOC dancing from her college days, so I think Republicans are just incapable of understanding expressions of joy.
RWers just don't understand it.
There are buildings full of things that reactionaries don't understand: they're called libraries.
The only have her laugh for now. They will literally pick anything and try to make it a big deal. Obama was for wearing a tan suit, eating Dijon mustard on a hot dog, and terror fist bumping his wife.
Such little snowflakes that care about stuff that doesn't matter.
I don't understand the coconut and kamala thing.
Context: I am not American and my English level is limited.
She once related a story where her mom (I think) told her "What, you think you just fell from a coconut tree?" to get across the idea that no one is an island and we all build on what came before us. And between the odd phrasing and her exaggerated delivery, it ended up becoming a meme.