Julie Bindel, an online commentator (with some rather extremist views on men and other groups of humans that she finds intolerable), Recently opined that the term Karen should be considered analogous to the N-word for white women.
This led to a rather heated series of responses from #BlackTwitter, As well as a fair amount of mockery online.
And perhaps the divine comedy and all of this? The actual question was started by a parody account on Twitter:
So so where does the Karen moniker come from?
Over the past decade, I’m sure you’ve seen videos on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Reddit documenting someone with a “can I talk to the manager haircut” — berating someone in public.
There are entire subReddits and thousands of YouTube videos dedicated to discussing this phenomenon — and the extreme entitlement that ranges from abusing others children, in public, to acts of violence.
These acts of violence are usually in retaliation, for a perceived slight that generally doesn’t exist.
The Karen phenomenon has also given rise to the “I don’t work here lady” phenomenon:
On Reddit, This has become a community that documents stories of attacks and malicious acts from Karens across the world.
And if you want to take it one step further there’s an actual community called r/FuckyouKaren — Which will regale you with stories where Karen type behavior has led to arrests or worse.
So it’s beyond ironic, that a term that has become generally used for entitled behavior and random acts of savagery against unsuspecting citizens, Should become the focus of Julie Bindel’s new ire.
Aside from the tone deafness, on Bindel’s part, the greater irony is — that we have members of society who have become completely ignorant of #meme culture and the differences in between Gen Z humor, cultural commentary and actual offenses.
And this gives way to pop culture terminology and colloquial idioms such as Becky, Which have been typically used to identify a level of. “Basic-ness” regarding the person being discussed.
I could go into a diatribe discussing other idioms, such as, Felicia, Chad, Stacey and Others — However since we’re quarantined under coronavirus — that’s perhaps something fun for you to search.
So, this takes us back to the question of where did the Karen meme come from, And why is it so culturally significant.
To unpack that, Consider that there are people out there that actually enjoy starting a ruckus publicly — And the names in idioms like Karen are typically the response to that type of ill-mannered. behavior
Now, once you take that ill mannered behavior, and you add in an extreme level of entitlement — We ended up with the Internet’s response. That being “let me talk to your manager” Memes.
And, underscoring the dissonance in between Gen Z humor vs. the expectations of Boomer to Millennial humor. You can start to see the cultural lack of understanding that matriculates in:
Karen Becoming the most Karen that Karen can Karen, While decrying the injustice of the term Karen, being used to describe Karen for Karen-ing.
Perhaps it’s the fact, that tone deafness and entitlement — preclude people who would prefer to attack and demean anyone for any slight — Who are the actual problem here.
Also consider the fact, that if consistent rude behavior has resulted, in the colloquial idiom, Karen, becoming mainstream — To the point and degree that you can buy a Karen doll — Perhaps the issue is not one of commentators like Bindel taking offense.
