Apple Dance girl reminds fans of the true meaning of Brat summer amid internet row

Brat Summer might be over, but the craze behind Charli XCX’s summer album is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, especially over hits like “365” and “Apple.”

In fact, “Apple” even spawned a popular dance routine that has taken over the internet in the last few months, featuring in film promotions and on social media in equal measure. The dance routine is the brainchild of TikTok user Kelley Heyer, who was recently invited by Charli XCX to the New York leg of her Sweat tour to appear on the Apple cam and perform the iconic routine.

However, her performance was impeded by a concertgoer, who joined in the dance and hyped Heyer up as she completed the routine. While Heyer didn’t react to the hindrance and remained calm, fans took offense on her behalf, launching scathing personal attacks and berating the concertgoer for spoiling the moment.

Amid the internet fiasco, Heyer has come out and defended the concertgoer, calling out fans for unnecessarily reacting in a hostile manner:

“I feel really bad for her because she’s being treated really unfairly by the internet. I didn’t want to be someone who tears down this girl for something that was a mistake.”

Kelly Heyer/BBC Newsbeat

Hayer mentioned that the person reached out and apologized to her and the TikTok personality also outlined the ethos of Brat Summer:

She and I are cool, and everyone else wants to be a hater. Tearing other women down [and] being fatphobic, that’s not brat. Brat is community and you support your community.”

Kelly Heyer/BBC Newsbeat

Meanwhile, the song has been on a tear since its release, having breached the 172 million streams mark on Spotify. A summer anthem whose popularity has only been matched by Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” this year, “Apple” is about family trauma and Charli’s relationship with her parents, its relatively solemn lyrics masked under a coat of peppy dance music.

Heyer’s TikTok dance has played an important role in popularizing the song, a fact which Charli acknowledges. The British singer-songwriter has featured in multiple iterations of the dance, the most famous one being her grooving to the melody with Troye Sivan. In the last couple of months, the routine has gone viral, with the likes of Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glenn Powell, Anthony Ramos, and Cailee Spaeny participating in the trend for their movies Twisters and Alien: Romulus, respectively.