Do you find the term/meme 'Karen' an insult?

If you put Karen meme in google images you can see it goes way beyond customer service.

I've never really thought about it. But the most 'Karen" person I know is actually called Karen.

My teen dc use Karen as a meme based more on Mean Girls "oh my God Karen. You can't "

Yes, I have called a number of people out on this recently. It is sexist, ageist and just boring.

For some reason it seems worse than saying 'they've been Wendied' though I haven't heard that for a while!

Karen behaviours - assertive, vocal, advocates for herself and her family.
Nothing that should be derided or despised there and yet it is

I don't use social media for much beyond communication and don't browse meme sites but my understanding was that a 'Karen' was a customer service nightmare (in terms of unreasonable demands and impatience towards other customers) and little more. Do you have an example of how 'Karen' is used more widely?

It is not my name but I was born in 1970 and yes I think it "get back in your box older woman".
A woman call Emily or Isabel can complain about poor customer service Im sure. Because she is young.

I’ve seen some awful fb posts where a woman named Karen posts or comments something fairly innocuous and has been absolutely piled upon with other people gleefully saying things like “oh look, KAREN has arrived with her opinion” and congratulating each other on their hilarity and wit.

Ditto with people plastering photos of unsuspecting women with a bob all over the internet and oh so wittily saying something like “I bet she’s waiting to see the manager!”

So I don’t buy the “oh but it’s just a meme, it’s not aimed at anybody!” Wide eyed innocence.

And no, there isn’t a male equivalent as widely used as “Karen”.

“All middle aged women are rude and unreasonable” is just as shit as “all young people are lazy and greedy”.

As an entitlementism slur, not really. But its ageist and kinda classist so yes.

OK so not really comparable. And Mary is homophobic but also sexist.

Karen behaviours - assertive, vocal, advocates for herself and her family.

Karen appearance - not following the script for male approval.

Nothing that should be derided or despised there and yet it is. Women who won’t shut up and be pleasing to the Male gaze are such a threat they must be silenced and pushed out of society.

Do people use Melvin and Gary as insults?

As with Karen, it's more of an American insult but they were popular when less people were online (at least the mid 90s at the latest - mid 2000s) so I don't recall them being used widely in British culture. My (male and female) American colleagues at the time certainly used them with reasonable frequency.

Last sentence - I’m sorry!

Do people use Melvin and Gary as insults? I see memes with female names all the time.

Not racist!!! Not particularly classist either. Sexist and ageist. Karen isnt a lower or upper class name. Just very a popular regular name of a certain time, ie. some memes use Jackie, Linda, Janet or Susan. All in their 50s or 60s now?
Just another way to put down older middle aged women. Sometimes is is funny because it is a true...sorry! sometimes very offensive.

I don't think it's any more or less sexist than using 'Melvin' or 'Gary' as insults and it's definitely not misogynistic. I would more associate using 'Mary' (describing an effeminate man, with the implication of homosexuality) as being both sexist and misogynistic, as that's directly defining traits that the user views as exclusively feminine as well as being implicitly undesirable in males.

In the case of a 'Karen' the sex/gender of the target is more incidental than a specific target.

Is there a male equivalent?

I also hate the MN inspired "Is she a Wendy"

I hate any time a name is co-opted to represent something spiteful or unpleasant tbh. People would never do it to their own name would they but it's just fine when it's other people's.

Yes, and ageist.

Yes. It's thinly veiled hatred of middle-aged women. A name like Karen was chosen because it was popular in a certain era and then fell out of fashion so everyone knows what we mean by a "Karen". I remember growing up people used to refer to certain women as "Sharons" which was certainly a class insult. It's all horrible as far as I'm concerned.

Boils my piss is a disgusting and ignorant statement

Misogynist - yes, racist - not sure possibly depending on country, classist - same as racist. I’d add ageist. It’s a name that was very popular in a window of time.

It’s a meme’d scolds bridle.

Yes.

Yes

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