Everyone is suddenly calling Kamala Harris “Momala.” “The Momala Economy,” read a headline about Harris’ potential policy goals. “We need you to be Momala of the country,” Drew Barrymore told the vice president in April, in a clip going viral now that Biden has stepped down and Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
Harris’ stepchildren, Ella and Cole Emhoff, gave her the moniker when she married their father, Doug Emhoff. But what does it mean for the name to become ubiquitous?
Pragmatically, the Momala nickname is helpful for the Harris campaign; if nothing else, it makes it clear how to pronounce Kamala — it rhymes with mama-la, not ka-MAH-lah. And it parallels a ringing endorsement of internet slang: calling a beloved celebrity such as Beyoncé “Mother.”
But, as basically every Jewish publication (including this one) has observed, Momala also sounds like the Yiddish endearment, mamaleh, which literally means “little mother,” but is usually used for children.
This makes the moniker a mixed bag for the Harris campaign. Female politicians have historically not done well by being seen as “cute” or “little” anything; Donald Trump and his fellow speakers at the Republican National Convention last week spent a lot of airtime on declaring a return to American strength. While not everyone might know the Yiddish word, the diminutive, cutesy tone of the name still translates — and diminutive is not an aesthetic anyone typically associates, at least positively, with world leaders.
On the other hand, there’s currently a massive — and entirely organic — meme campaign for Harris, setting her loud laugh, goofy dancing and somewhat confusing statements to pop music by strong female artists. There’s clips set to Taylor Swift, Ke$ha, Chappell Roan and, most importantly, Charli XCX, the star behind the album of the summer, Brat, who had a viral moment when she posted “kamala IS brat.”
“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” Harris asks, before the bass drop hits to any one of the pop songs. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” While the coconut clip is the most viral — and coconut emojis as a sort of shorthand for supporting her candidacy — there are also versions editing together clips of the vice president laughing or discussing her love for Venn diagrams.
These fancam edits spin moments from Harris that had previously been lambasted by the right into things to celebrate. A human president — one who is weird, yes, but in relatable ways. So what if she dances like your mom? It shows that she’s not faking anything, setting her apart from countless overly polished politicians. If Momala is a little bit cringe, it’s also sweet that her stepkids gave her such a cutesy, goofy nickname.
And the sweetness of Momala also serves to center Harris’ importance to her family, even as some conservative talking heads attempt to denigrate the fact that Harris has not physically borne children and so does not understand the concerns and priorities of American families. “Momala” makes it clear, in a word, that she is not a distant stepmother, but instead a core and beloved member of the family.
That means the biggest pitfall of “Momala” might actually be its appeal. Memes and online humor are a delicate ecosystem that runs, largely, on irony. Anything that appears “try-hard” is immediately discounted as cringe, an intruder on the inside joke.
The coconut and Momala memes emerged organically, laden with a certain snark even as they foment excitement for Harris’ candidacy by way of Brat’s thumping bass club music or the chorus of Chappell Roan’s pop anthem “Feminomenon.” The second the campaign embraces the memes, however, they’ll lose their irreverence. Political campaigns, after all, are fundamentally try-hard.
Unfortunately for the Harris campaign, the Brat and coconut memes already went so viral so fast that they stopped being quite so fun; too many people, including Fox News commentators, got in on the joke. (Sort of, anyway; they didn’t seem to really get it.) Momala, however, is still relatively safe. But if the campaign tries to leverage the Yiddish ring of “Momala” to appeal to the Jewish vote, for example, everyone will see right through it, identifying it — correctly — as pandering. If they leave it alone, people will keep making memes embracing the moniker as a sign Harris is one of their own.
Harris herself seems to understand the danger; when Drew Barrymore asked her to be “Momala of the country,” the vice president visibly cringed. She gets it.
Mira Fox is a reporter at the Forward. Get in touch at [email protected] or on Twitter @miraefox.
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
