A Treatise on Bratting

I awoke this morning to frantic notifications from the girls, an absolute maelstrom of hype. Charli XCX had officially announced her 6th album, titled:

brat

I couldn’t believe my eyes. My girl, my pop idol, the woman whose lyricism and abs had fully defined my journey into womanhood, the artist whose music had soundtracked my life since I first gained consciousness Sophomore year of high school when I heard “Nuclear Seasons” in my ratty wired ear buds. The one, true mother of my heart and soul, was putting out THE brat girl album. GAG.

Brattiness has marbled through Charli’s discography since the beginning. Her sophomore album, titled “Sucker,” was a tribute to girls who hated the systems they were born into and despised everyone around them constantly telling them what to do. A full refusal to conform to the pop trends of the moment. Her first mixtape, “Number 1 Angel,” was essentially a meditation on being a snotty, insufferable girlie desperate for the love and attention she knows she deserves. In 2020, when we were all mired in despair, she put out “How I’m Feeling Now,” a sonic middle finger to the world that had failed us all, and a proclamation of community’s importance in a time of isolation. Her 2021 follow up “Crash” was a final sticking her tongue out moment to the music industry in all its horrific splendor, telling the Atlantic Record execs who had suffocated so many careers to go fuck themselves in no uncertain terms while simultaneously proclaiming the death of hyperpop (god willing.)

For her to title this 6th album “brat” represents, to me at least, a full embracing of the bratty bitch club girl persona bubbling beneath the surface since 2013. And I could not be more excited. Charli herself has gone on record saying as much, proclaiming “brat” to be her “all time favorite forever” in the announcement text to her fans.

OK, now that we’ve established my allegedly academic obsession with Charli, let’s get to the point: me. And by me, I mean the concept of BRATTING ITSELF.

Much like Ms. XCX, I have embodied a bratty streak that would make the most stone-faced dom tops crack like impure pottery in its heat. I was born a son to a mother who so desperately wanted a daughter that she tried again a year later. When my father tried his damndest to make a manly athlete man out of me, I opted for theater and show choir and volleyball and cheerleading and dance and art. They shipped me off to Indiana to study fucking ENGINEERING, and I failed out on purpose so I could pursue my dream of studying photography and art history. As I graduated college against all odds, as the world finally seemed to accept me as a man, I realized I was a gay woman. I’ve struggled to hold down a job because I loathe being told what to do. Even my sweetie pie vibes, the positive energy I radiate into the spaces I inhabit, is a form of rebellion against the myriad weirdos in my life who have done all they can to kick me down the stairs. Bratting is in my blood. If you were to prick my finger and examine the double helix under an electron microscope you wouldn’t see ACTG, you’d see BRAT.

To me, bratting has always been more than saying “no.” Bratting is rebellion incarnate. Bratting is a divine rejection of the “should” and the “must.” As we move into the “brat” era, I’d like to establish myself as the Brat Philosopher, little miss academia helping the word mean something more concrete than the masses can take away with their ambivalence to semantic drift.

To you, the reader, I propose the Brat’s Treatise as defined by me, Molly.

I’m not entirely sure how to launch into this, I’m no Descartes, but here goes…

The Brat’s Treatise

To brat is to make oneself truly known, to make the contents of the soul spill out as they look the external issuer of demand in the eye and say “no” because they can.

A brat causes trouble and does what they want but, crucially, the brat must always remember who they’re doing it for: themselves. Not in a selfish way, not with reckless disregard for the spaces they inhabit and the relationships they are a part of, but with intent to shield their sense of self from the influence of others.

To brat is not to act out of obligation, but to lead with desire. Not merely to embody the negative and the contrary for contrary’s sake, but to be principled in one’s yearning even in the face of another’s lust.

To brat is to embody divine rebellion, to tell those who rule this world that their power, no matter how overwhelming, cannot truly control the subjects whose independence they fear. To brat is to look at the cruelty perpetrated across nations and say “no,” opting instead to lead with love and light.

To brat is to truly know oneself, to self-actualize in a world desperate for homogeneity. To brat is to stare an era of detachment and atomization right in the face and choose connection, community, passion and ecstasy. Every "no" is a refusal of authority, every "make me" is a challenge to the powers that be.

Welcome to the era of the brat.