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The Karens


Martell Spy

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I'll start a thread on this just to get it out of U.S. Politics. Is the term sexist? Classist? I'm not an expert on Internet memes and I certainly could have been wrong on the male use of the term, it is just what I had read somewhere. An Atlantic writer used the term btw to describe Donald Trump as the Karen in Chief.

I think the main victims of the popularizing of the term are people with the actual name.

 

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Here is a link to an article on the pejorative use of "Karen" from last February, which includes quotes from both myself and Iman Nick, another leader of The American Name Society:

https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21079162/karen-name-insult-meme-manager

The age stereotype associated with the insulting use of "Karen" actually fits the average age of Karens in the UK better than it does the USA -- Karen is more common for Baby Boomers in the USA than it is for Generation X women. 

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49 minutes ago, Relic said:

In reply to @Heartofice

 

Sure. As it goes with human psychology, in general. However, you can't deny that there are "true believers" who are actively attempting to unite and spread. And those dudes ARE dangerous. 

I dunno if this is the Karens thread or the incels thread but ok.

On 'incels' I think like every kind of subgroup there are a small minority who take it to dangerous extremes, but mostly its just a bunch of sad loners who don't do anything but sit at home on the internet. People like Elliot Roger are mentally unwell and might have done some thing similar no matter what forum they hung around in.

I think it is part of a general trend of young frustrated men who get caught up in an ideology, and who want to take out their frustrations on others and the world, that could be incels, or joining the KKK, or becoming a jihadi or worst of all, joining antifa ;). I think a lot more needs to be done to understanding the motivations and issues behind these kind of trends.

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3 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Is the term sexist? Classist?

If you want to over-analyse everything, then yes, it's obviously both sexist and classist.

That doesn't mean some Karens don't deserve to be made fun of.

It's all about how you define and use the term. If you start seeing "Karens" as a large -relatively homogeneous- group, then you have a problem.

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1 hour ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I can’t stand the use of the name “Karen” in the new “meme-way”.

It’s lazy.

Say “privileged, entitled, virago, racist, harridan”....any of those words that fit the situation. 

I think the point was to make it catchy so that it would spread and it seems to have been successful at that. In the same way that when you say the word John, and referring to a person and not a location/place, then most people instantly conjure up a consumer of sex work, usually a male one. The Johns out there may not like it, but that is their cross to bear.

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38 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

If you want to over-analyse everything, then yes, it's obviously both sexist and classist.

That doesn't mean some Karens don't deserve to be made fun of.

It's all about how you define and use the term. If you start seeing "Karens" as a large -relatively homogeneous- group, then you have a problem.

I think it's difficult because we don't know who created the term. If say African-American service workers created it they probably had very good reasons to draw attention to the plight of the average service worker in America.

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8 hours ago, Starkess said:

I first heard Karen a while ago and it didn't bother me, but as it's gotten more and more common and memed, it really rubs me the wrong way. It totally is sexist and ageist.

Sexist maybe, I dont agree but I'll concede that it possibly is. But ageist? I've seen Karen videos of all ages, more old than young, but the majority women in their late 30s early 40s, how is it ageist? 

 

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3 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

 

It seems mostly to have come from guys complaining about women they find annoying in their lives.

 

That is nowhere near my experience. It is normally strangers filming an absolutely reprehensible human being, behaving appallingly.  Rude, entitled, unreasonable and frequently racist. I've literally never seen it used in the way you describe. However I'm not a massive user of social media outside facebook. 

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They used to be called Aunt Agatha or Honoria Glossop. And once one thinks about it, such clichées seem more damning on the Uncle whatevers and Bertie Woosters of the world because they are so easily intimidated by such females of the species (being deadlier than the male). More seriously, as I understood the meme, gender and age are incidental, the core is mostly someone behaving annoyingly and haughtily towards people in tough and (usually low paid and low status) service jobs. Not sure if younger women or middle aged men do this less frequently than the supposedly typical "Karen". There are certainly cultural and personal differences here as well. I am annoyed easily but absolutely hate complaining and so I usually won't but this can have the effect that when I actually bring myself to complain about something I can tend to be severe and uncompromising but because of my general character I would never be able to raise Hell like Meme Karens do.

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1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

That is nowhere near my experience. It is normally strangers filming an absolutely reprehensible human being, behaving appallingly. 

I'm going off the article quoted in the posted which does seem to give metamorphosis on how the terms become popularized.

You know I was in the middle of adding the qualifier of the men often depicted are shown to legitimately being given a raw deal when I got notified you respond to me.

So I think I do need to clarify again I'm sorry.

To be I'm not trying to justify their bad treatment at the hands of these women.

It's just we didn't get a similar meme generated which has the same wide spread use and negative connotations.

Like its not hard to find videos of men being racist--hell there are instances where making unjustified calls to the police that seem more predicated on race where white-men kill the black person they had called the cops on.

 It's not hard to plenty of videos of men being demeaning and demanding towards people in the service industry.

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On 10/26/2020 at 4:06 PM, Martell Spy said:

I'll start a thread on this just to get it out of U.S. Politics. Is the term sexist? Classist? I'm not an expert on Internet memes and I certainly could have been wrong on the male use of the term, it is just what I had read somewhere. An Atlantic writer used the term btw to describe Donald Trump as the Karen in Chief.

I think the main victims of the popularizing of the term are people with the actual name.

 

Yes. About 6 months ago it was pretty much a fun term, some people embraced being called it in a fun way, and, at least in the circles I ran in, it was a harmless insult and sometimes a term of endearment.

But since it has hit the mainstream it has certainly became sexist as it is being used to label any women who people viewed as being 'entitled', often, in the case of reddit, on a clip less than a minute long with no context about the situation. And it was being labelled at women of any race and almost any adult woman.

People would never label men a derogatory term for being self-assured, but with the 'karen' term there seems to a genuine issue with people (both male and female) assuming any woman who is confident as being an entitled 'Karen'.

It did not start of as sexist but it certainly has been co-opted by a lot of red pill users and people who hate women and the lesson it is teaching some women is that you can't speak up for yourself without fear of being labelled a 'Karen'.

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[mod] Folks, if you feel the need to liken something to an extremely offensive racist slur, it is not necessary or advisable to post that extremely offensive racist slur, unmodified and direct. Find a better way to make your point without gratuitous offence. Thank you. [/mod]

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11 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

That is nowhere near my experience. It is normally strangers filming an absolutely reprehensible human being, behaving appallingly.  Rude, entitled, unreasonable and frequently racist. I've literally never seen it used in the way you describe. However I'm not a massive user of social media outside facebook. 

I'm with you on this one: "Karen" described a behavior, at least originally.

Now it seems to be used to attack a certain group of women (middle-aged middle-class women I'd say).

I'm on board with the original trend, not the second one.

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On 10/28/2020 at 3:08 AM, Bernie Mac said:

Yes. About 6 months ago it was pretty much a fun term, some people embraced being called it in a fun way, and, at least in the circles I ran in, it was a harmless insult and sometimes a term of endearment.

Yeah I can see totally not sexist or socially progressive  people using Karen.

But even when I started hearing it, I kinda saw a lot of sexists using it.

On 10/28/2020 at 3:08 AM, Bernie Mac said:

People would never label men a derogatory term for being self-assured, but with the 'karen' term there seems to a genuine issue with people (both male and female) assuming any woman who is confident as being an entitled 'Karen'.

I wouldn't this exactly, but the standard of what would be considered ”arrogance” is certainly lowered for women, and girls.

I've seen people the around the word ”chad” affectionately, left wingers and right wingers in regards to a man.

But not Karen.

On 10/28/2020 at 3:08 AM, Bernie Mac said:

It did not start of as sexist but it certainly has been co-opted by a lot of red pill users and people who hate women and the lesson it is teaching some women is that you can't speak up for yourself without fear of being labelled a 'Karen'.

You don't wanna be a shrew? I mean Karen.

Yeah it can be an easy way to shut down any talk From women in regards unfair treatment  as inappropriate.

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I never used to be bothered by it and watched Karen freak out videos sometimes. Until I’ve been called a Karen...for just...existing? And daring to have opinions? And I genuinely mean that. No shouting, racism, nastiness. Just me on tiktok making one of my history or folklore videos or on livestream. “ITS A KAREN!!! HIIIIII KAREN” 

im 26 years old I just wanna talk about regional history :lol: 

Now I think there after being firmly rooted in mainstream there can be an element of sexism to the usage. 
 

BUT I have to be fully honest, I’ll still watch those videos & not be hugely bothered because some of those women are truly vile and if we are going to constantly talk about how some men can be truly disgusting, and we should, we can’t ignore or deny that women can as well. 
 

HOWEVER I hate the videos of young men who are basically antagonising a woman to get video views and then she turns into some kind of stressed approximation of “a Karen” but you can tell there’s been a lot of antagonism before the video starts just to get a video with a million views. 

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