With just around one week left in the semester, some students may be starting to pack their bags to leave for the summer with the memories they have made throughout the academic year. Other students, specifically those living in Willkie South’s seventh floor, may be taking home a neon green decor piece with their name on it.
Resident assistant Keith Burge, who oversees Willkie South’s seventh floor, wanted to incorporate the “Brat summer” aesthetic as the floor theme in August when students were moving in for first semester.
“I just wanted to give them something fun to come back to and to be like, ‘Yeah this is a good place to call home,’” Burge said.
“Brat” is singer-songwriter Charli XCX’s sixth album, which gained popularity in summer 2024. The album consisted of a mix of genres, including electronic and pop dance music with hit songs “Guess,” “Apple” and “360.”
The “Brat summer” aesthetic incorporates the album cover’s neon green color and messy, party girl style, which gained a lot of attention on social media platforms. Content creator Kelley Heyer choreographed a TikTok dance to “Apple” that quickly went viral, inspiring other creators to try the dance. Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign embraced the aesthetic tweeted “kamala IS brat.” The statement gained the attention of many TikTok video editors, who created video montages of Harris to songs from the album.
Burge decorated the floor’s bulletin board with neon green color and black text modeled after the arial narrow font of the “Brat” album cover. The board includes resources, dining hall hours and information on how to contact the center desk. Burge wrote “iu and it's the same but you used BeInvolved so it’s better,” in reference to Charli XCX’S deluxe album, “brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not.”
Burge’s personal bulletin board includes information about himself, including his major and minor, hometown, top three favorite music artists and albums including Charli XCX, hobbies and other favorite things. His decorative name tag on the door reads “bRAt,” capitalizing the “RA” to acknowledge his resident assistant status.
The floor theme went viral after TikTok user and floor resident Skyler Long posted a “POV: you move into your college dorm and your floor is brat themed” video Aug. 18, 2024, showing the decorated floor. The video received over 120,000 likes and comments from brands such as Jimmy John’s, RXBAR, Eggo and e.l.f Cosmetics.
Sometimes resident assistants will switch their floor theme for second semester. However, Burge kept “Brat” all year round.
“’Brat’ has been the theme for this whole year going from the green cover to the white deluxe cover,” Burge said.
The unexpected attention caught Burge by surprise, he said he didn’t expect the floor to go viral on social media and gain as much attention as it did. He mentioned that one of his friends brought up a comment that a viewer left on the TikTok, joking Burge would “run the floor like the navy.”
“Outlandish thing to say,” he said, “But I do run it like the navy. I run a tight ship here.”
Long said she also didn’t expect her Tik Tok to go viral, saying she made it because she knew “Brat” was trendy at the time.
“A lot of people like noticed me,” Long said. “I remember going to like my first week of classes or the first month of classes, I would be in the bathroom and someone would be like, ‘Oh my God, like do you have a TikTok?’”
She recalls Burge telling her someone walked up to him at McNutt Quadrangle’s dining hall and said, “You’re that RA from the TikTok.”
“I loved my floor, I loved Keith. I honestly just enjoyed like all the little things that he would put together like in the lounge,” Long said. “He was a really good RA. It was good to see him around.”
Burge held “A Tender Goodbye” on Monday, most importantly to provide information on moving out of the residence hall, but to also give residents a farewell to the “Brat” theme.
