'Guncle' Infuriates His Sister With Handmade Charli XCX-Themed Blanket For Her Newborn—'She's Not A Brat She's An Angel'
What's the problem? He's just trying to give the baby some culture!
@computergay / X | Vladimir Gjorgiev / Shutterstock | Canva Pro There's nothing like a handmade gift straight from the heart — most of the time, at least. Unless, that is, you are a certain pop fan's sister who doesn't exactly share her brother's sensibilities.
In a social media post, the self-described "guncle" shared his homemade creation for his darling new niece, with which he hoped to initiate the baby into the fandom of his favorite pop star, Charli XCX. Suffice to say, his sister was not feeling "so Julia" about it. Because she has no taste!
The guncle's sister was deeply offended by his handmade baby gift, a blanket themed on Charli XCX's new album "Brat."
Charli XCX's hotly-anticipated sixth album, "Brat," dropped just a few weeks ago, and to say pop fans, by which I mainly mean gay men, are losing their minds over it would be an understatement.
Amid the excitement, the album's simple neon-green and black-text cover art has become a meme unto itself on the internet, with fans jokingly deeming pretty much anything in the right shade of neon green to be a tribute to Charli's album. But, like, truly anything.
Basically, in certain corners of the internet, when it comes to the "Brat" cover "It's Everywhere, it's so Julia," to quote the lyrics of the album's online fame-lampooning single "360," a reference to ubiquitous internet it-girl Julia Fox. (Though Chloe Sévigny is the real star of the thing!) It's a delightfully, intoxicatingly silly rabbit hole that Charli fans have gone down.
So when you're a newly minted gay uncle steeped in the droll delirium of Charli fandom and "b-b-bumpin' that beat" nonstop, what is the most logical thing you choose as a baby gift? Yes, right, of course: the "Brat" logo knitted into a blanket, obviously. What other choice is there?!
@computergay / X
Now in the interest of journalistic integrity, it is important that I point out that this man's post is (almost certainly) an elaborate joke for the Charli XCX fandom. There doesn't appear to be any record of it actually ever having been posted on Reddit, and the story is so silly it seems like it has to be tongue-in-cheek.
But that didn't stop people from falling for it and having a good hearty laugh anyway — in part because a mom getting offended over something so frivolous doesn't seem THAT implausible these days.
The new mom was offended that her brother called her baby a "brat" with the Charli XCX blanket.
The post is made to resemble an AITA Reddit entry. In it, the author (likely the X user who posted it, a well-known Gay Twitter™ jokester) wrote that his sister "just had a baby 0F," a wonderfully absurd reference to Reddit's standard age/gender character identifying lingo that had many online guffawing. A 0-year-old baby? Perfect.
The author went on to explain that his new niece was born around the same time as "Brat's" release. "Naturally, as a guncle, I crocheted the album cover and didn't tell my sister beforehand to surprise her," he wrote, adding that "it was about $20 of yarn and 40 hours of work."
@computergay / X
The gift did not go over well with his "sister." When she got it in the mail, "she said, 'why would you waste your time on this? The green color is ugly and why would you call my daughter a brat? She's an angel.'"
Okay, HARSH. But it got worse. When the guncle revealed that the blanket was in reference to the album, she replied, 'Charli XCX? Iggy Azalea's assistant in the "Clueless" music video?"
Ma'am, this slander WILL NOT be tolerated, especially during Pride Month. Iggy Azalea and Charli's "Clueless"-themed "Fancy" video is a millennial touchstone. Thank God this post isn't real because I'd have to go track this woman down and instruct her baby in the classics myself!
Lots of people didn't clock that the post was a joke — in part because the sister's rude reaction feels so plausible nowadays.
These kinds of elaborate jokes have become ubiquitous on social media nowadays, partly because so many people are gullible enough to fall for them. So long as you make them look and sound real, for better or worse, most people seem willing to take them at face value.
And in this case, even on Reddit—typically the savviest place on the internet—several took the post to be real, even though its author, BoomClap69, an irreverent reference to one of Charli's old songs, does not exist.
"I mean, it just sounds like the sister isn’t a Charli fan and was genuinely confused," one person earnestly wrote. "But she didn’t have to be so rude about it." Right! Whatever happened to grace and manners?
Another chimed in to agree. "Exactly, it’s the perfect gift for the wrong person." A Twitter user had a similar take. "It's an incredible blanket but i mean u need to know your audience for a gift ur giving THEM 😭" So true bestie, we can all learn from this.
Of course, gullibility ensured that at least a handful of people would fall for this joke no matter what. But what surely pushed the ruse along to such heights is the fact that a lot of parents really are… well, entirely too precious about their babies nowadays.
From paying consultants tens of thousands of dollars to come up with the perfect unique baby name, to throwing a fit when their kid is offered a piece of birthday cake without their approval, the idea of someone getting legitimately offended and angered by a blanket reading "brat"—whether Charli XCX-themed or not—just isn't that implausible in these times!
Perhaps that's the lesson here — it's not that serious, so just lighten up! Your baby's guncle is just trying to give her an appreciation for the art of electro-pop and help her develop a high level of taste and connoisseurship! Getting offended about it? Girl, so confusing!
(That is a reference to the Charli XCX and Lorde collaboration "Girl, So Confusing," and will conclude this attempt to shoehorn Charli XCX content onto our website that I somehow got my boss to approve. Which really is so Julia of me. Anyway, go stream "Brat" bye!)
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.