Roots of the Coconut Tree
“We cannot support and help our young people if we also don’t look at the context in which those young people live and are being raised.”
It may be the most important meme of the 2024 election thus far. Doja Cat tweeted about it. Other X/Twitter users have called the video “literally like medicine” and described 45-minute hits of euphoria that follow viewing. It’s spawning dozens of imitations and transformations (which is what technically makes it a meme). What is it?
KnowYourMeme simply calls it “Fell Out of a Coconut Tree.”
In short, it’s a viral quote from Vice President Kamala Harris that has taken on a life of its own in 2024 after Harris first spoke the words in 2023. It has also become shorthand for discussing Harris as a presidential candidate, with some dubbing her run “Operation Coconut Tree” and supporters referring to themselves as “coconut-pilled.” Coconut emojis are also used to show support for Harris.
The original full quote about the coconut tree was as follows:
My mother used to — she 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?” (Laughs.)
You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.
And here is a video of the complete original speech, with Harris’ famous “coconut tree” anecdote starting at 31:30 (about six minutes into her speech):
Other articles describing the coconut tree meme (such as those from Forbes, USA Today, Vox) were draped in advertisements, so I thought the internet might appreciate a simple page to provide some, well, context.
If you are going further down the rabbit trail (er, climbing further up the coconut tree?), here are some other tidbits for you:
- Here is a full transcript of the remarks at whitehouse.gov. Vice President Kamala Harris made the remarks on May 10, 2023 at a ceremony to swear in Commissioners for the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics.
- The GOP posted a 21-second video of the remarks on the same day.
- If you want to get technical, the speech started at 11:41 A.M. EDT according to the White House, which would mean the coconut tree meme was born at 11:47 A.M. EDT on May 10, 2023.
What’s Special About this Meme?
This one is definitely going to be a great case study for my memes class in May 2025. I will post more about it soon, but I can’t resist adding a few thoughts here.
The first attribute that stands out to me about this meme is its multi-modality. In my view, the sound itself was key to this meme spreading — I can’t imagine the quote going viral without the tone change, the laughter, and the difficulty returning to script. If Harris just delivered the line in a monotone voice, the coconut tree might have remained in obscurity.
Also, today’s memes are often sound-based due to the structure of TikTok videos and Instagram reels. A short and catchy soundbite like this can spawn thousands of lip-dub videos which propagate the original sound to many different audiences.
But in addition to the sound, the quote has distinct visual and textual components as well. The phrase “you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you” is short enough to be memorable, and weird enough to be recognized as a quote. This allows the meme to spread on text-based apps as well (i.e. Threads and X/Twitter).
And, finally, the coconut tree is a visually distinct symbol. It’s not too often you can closely link a presidential campaign to an emoji. In fact, there are only four tree emojis: two are Christmas trees (🎄 and 🌲), one is just a “tree” (🌳), and the last one is a coconut palm tree (🌴). The whole meme is really a gift to a marketing team somewhere.
P.S. Coconut Trees are Not Trees
Just for fun, here is a fun fact I learned from John Mulaney in Everybody’s in LA, episode 2 (which I highly recommend).
Coconut (palm) trees are botanically classified as monocots, so they are not really trees! Whereas real trees are dicots (or gymnosperms), as monocots, palm trees are more closely related to grasses.
