If you’ve ever wondered about the origins of curious words and phrases, here is Sophie Sperber with the origins of your favorite white suburban angry middle-aged woman: Karen.
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Beware: Yelling at industry workers, asking for managers, or baselessly accusing people of crimes may cause you to earn the label “Karen.”
According to BBC News, the exact origins of “Karen” are unknown, but the most popular explanation is that it became popular on “Black Twitter” as a way for people of color to satirize unreasonable white women. “Karen” also became equated to a specific type of hairstyle - a short, choppy cut.
Some believe the origins came from Amanda Seyfried’s “Karen” in Mean Girls, where she portrayed a bit of an airhead or Dane Cook’s 2005 sketch “The Friend Nobody Likes.” Others believe it began on Reddit. In 2017, Karen memes about entitled women went viral, which led to the creation of the subreddit r/F***YouKaren. The thread contained memes about the posts and even had spinoff threads dedicated to criticizing Karens.
Though some find the meme sexist and ageist, the internet’s response said being called a Karen is dependent on a person’s behavior, not just a catch-all for middle-aged women. Some notable examples include: calling the police on a black child’s lemonade stand for not having a permit. Calling the police on a black man for “threatening her and her dog’s life” after the man had asked her to leash her dog in public.
And of course… Coronavirus Karen: hoarding supplies, refusing to wear a mask, or antagonizing Asian American healthcare workers.
The caution is clear: if you want to avoid being called a Karen, don’t act like one.