Karen and the Generational Divide

[LucilleBluth]

My very good friend kept sending me TikTok videos via whatsapp and told me to get on it. I resisted but last week I decided to have a look what it was all about.

Now I’m 40, friend is 42, both white and degree educated with teenagers and primary aged DCs. It would seem that according to this app that middle aged white women are the actual devil. I’m from a working class background and friend is MC.

I’ve never seen younger people be so vitriolic against people they don’t know. It’s definitely misogyny and ageism but dressed up as being woke???

I can’t quite figure out why or where it’s coming from. Any sociological explanation for this?

@Proudboomer

I never knew my pixels on a screen gave an indication of my skin tone but hey if you think taking the piss out of a fat middle aged woman has anything to do with fighting white privilege then I am sure racism will cease to exist pretty soon as it seems that is the only demographic that it is still acceptable to insult.

Form the forum that defended the use of gammon?

I am NOT saying the articles should be about black people so white people aren't offended.

I didn't say you did say this. You said:

Spin this round and replace it with "black" and there is hell to pay.

My point is that the two cannot be compared. Historically, there is a reason why.

Pretty sure we are all posting as individual posters, not the mumsnet Borg.
Did a poster on here defend gammon?

certain type of white woman - henceforth known as a Karen - poses risk albeit of a different nature which in and of itself can be very traumatic/violent in a particular way

That is simply nonsense. On a scale of risks to society, young men are a 10 and middle aged women of all races are about a 0.5. Middle aged women do not cause violence and trauma. Men do.

If you're a woman yourself, I am genuinely concerned for you. This level of internalised misogyny is not healthy. Get off whatever lunatic SM sites are feeding you this crap, and read some second wave feminism.

Yes we should call out things for what they are, but using a term like Karen is just easier.

That's it really.isn't it? We should address the actual issue but it's easier to be lazy and take a shortcut even if it involves hurting people who have done nothing ,who we know nothing about.
" Ok,Karen" is a way of silencing women,like "ok,boomer" is a way of silencing older people,but worse because there are real women out there called Karen.However much you say you are talking about behaviour,using an actual gendered name personalises it and makes it gender specific.
If you want to criticise and call out unacceptable behaviour you need to do that.You might think that you are doing that and not encouraging misogyny and ageism by using "Karen"but what you are actually doing is giving an easy out to people who are just fine with using it to put down women.

@Proudboomer

How are these women complaining about trivial issues? And what type of woman does it depict? Apart from middle aged and white? What is wrong with being a middle aged white woman that makes them all fair game to have Their photos turned into an insult and put down

They're not and I think it's mean to take a photo just to make fun of them.

However 'Karen' is not about them personally. It's society's response to a certain type of person, and as far as I was aware, the videos posted of 'Karens' were ones involving screaming racial abuse, or belittling a customer service officer etc. Maybe the meme has moved on since then, but I thought it was used to describe middle aged white women on a power trip, which they could only take because they were white.

Fair enough @LucilleBluth These threads always pop up on Mumsnet and I should know better by now than to participate in them as it's a futile endeavour - sort of like trying to fly to Canada by tying pigeons to one's belt. I'll leave you all to it!

The two are not mutually exclusive. I am very knowledgable about the dire state/circumstances of women around the world. But that doesn't detract from me pointing out that a certain type of white woman - henceforth known as a Karen - poses risk albeit of a different nature which in and of itself can be very traumatic/violent in a particular way.

Literally 🙄 why do people keep making out like Karens can’t possibly exist because men exist & are much worse

I don’t think I’ve argued once that men aren’t worse in many cases & get away with more but the topic is Karen & it doesn’t mean they don’t exist just because men can also be fucking dicks, I really don’t get what about that is difficult to understand

Origin of Karen.

It's first ingredient was the Switch's Karen, a big meme in 2016.

www.polygon.com/2016/10/25/13403924/nintendo-switch-karen-meme-reveal-video
To male video gamers, Karen turned into the manifestation of that friend that forces you into situations you don't want to be in. "Oh great Karen brought her switch again". It eventually culminated in "Fuck you Karen" and the meme lost any link to its origin.

It's second main ingredient was the "Talk to the manager" woman.

We can see that the phrases like "Hell naw, Karen" and "goddamit, Karen" were in use in 2017, but they had not, at this point, merged with the haircut.

www.facebook.com/MedievalReact/posts/god-damnit-karen-i-dont-want-to-know-about-how-your-husband-cheated-on-you-with-/1930731887252301/

At the beginning of 2018, Karen is not seen to have any kind of racial angle.

www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/internet/2018/01/karen-sharon-becky-and-chad-how-it-feels-when-your-name-becomes-meme

“Perhaps this type of [middle-aged, white] woman is considered an acceptable butt for jokes about annoying women because she’s ‘generic’, there’s no race or class angle,” she says. As for why middle-aged white men feature less often in these jokes (Barry is perhaps the only middle-aged male name consistently memed), Cameron says male names carry less social information because parents’ choices tend to be more stable over time. She also notes sexism could be a factor.

This SNL skit seems to be where it took on the "racially insensitive" aspect:

But it is generally credited by the reddit community to have reached notoriety from the the reddit /r/fuckyoukaren - by a man who posted repeatedly and bitterly about his ex-wife Karen. The reddit is still going, but here's a thread from the same year discussing its contribution to the meme.

www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/7lz4ar/what_is_this_fuck_you_karen_thing/

It's no surprise to me that the original manifestation of Karen was a female gamer.

Bitch deserves all she gets!

@LucilleBluth

I can only speak for myself but I’m only really finding my voice now I’m getting older, I don’t put up with stuff like I would have at 25. I wouldn’t have asked to see the manager 10 years ago but I would now, so to speak.

It’s like just as women get more powerful it’s time to knock them down.

Sorry but it's not powerful to cause a scene in a restaurant because you don't like what the server said to you and want to escalate to the manager.

Having worked in the service industry it's sadly true that middle aged women are statistically the worst customer. The group defined as Karen's are the type to complain about nothing, will be rude, ask for something and then say that's not what they asked for... sit at the only dirty table in the restaurant during a busy day and then save you over to serve them immediately. Once had a woman practically shout at me that her food wasn't ready within 10 minutes.

Karen is a stereotype and if it doesn't apply to you you shouldn't be offended.

So, a combination of stroppy customer, female gamer, some bitter man's ex-wife, and butt of black humour.

No one said white women don’t experience harassment, abuse or discrimination just because non white women also experience this, but with racism added as well. That doesn’t take away from the white womans troubles. No it’s not a competition & yes women in general get a pretty shitty deal generally, but to not acknowledge that the experience is still different for non white women is when you’re not checking your privilege

I'm not white and I'm much more privileged than many white women. It's patronising to imply that all "non-white" (awful term, btw) women lack privilege. In my profession, class is much more of a guarantee of discrimination and poor treatment than race. The worst treated, most-poorly paid person in my department is a white, working-class woman. It would be ridiculous for me to claim I am more discriminated against than her.

That's another issue with this kind of activism. It dresses itself up as progressive but the kind of people who engage in it have all-but-abandoned any consideration of the material and economic bases of societal disadvantage. Privilege is tied to skin colour not to economic means. A lot of these social media activists absolutely despise white working class people as well (just look at the response to the Brexit vote and 2019 general election).

@vladmirspoutine I get what you're saying. I didn't mean any racial offence with my comment. But society today is very "one rule for one, one rule for another". Why can't we all be equal? 🤷‍♀️

Karen has many ingredients, and a good proportion of them are pure misogyny.

@Nellodee

Karen has many ingredients, and a good proportion of them are pure misogyny.

Well you'd know. You're the one calling women misogynist names.

Sunflowers095 I honestly don’t know where to start. I’m going to bed 😭

@GCAcademic You might find ‘non white’ awful but I don’t think POC is great. What would you use?

I agree that many non white people, women specifically in this context, can be in a better position economically & don’t doubt that a middle class non white woman would be treated better in a workplace than a white working class woman, but they still won’t (in generally society) get the same level as respect/lack of discrimination as a white middle class woman. So yes you’re right in that you’re better off than a working class white woman but not a middle class one which is wrong & sad & the point I’m making about racial privileges. Yes class privilege is also a thing but within those classes, racial privilege is still there

Here's a Karen meme from 2018, right back at the start of Karen memes, before she got her Talk to the Manager cut.

Its accompanied by the text:

Her: Something tells me you're cheating on me
Him: Why can't 'something' ever tell you to suck my dick, Karen?

www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/9gf3l0/get_nasty_karen/

@poppybritez, if you're referring to my calling a female gamer a "bitch", that was my bitter humour having been personally on the receiving end of male gamer misogyny many times.

'Non-white' is awful. It's like saying 'non-women', like white is the main colour and everything else is 'other'

So yes you’re right in that you’re better off than a working class white woman but not a middle class one which is wrong & sad
And all of the above are worse off than a middle class, white man.

This is the first Karen meme I can find where the haircut is wedded to the ex-wife "took the kids" meme. It hasn't taken on board the racial aspect yet, though that variant will soon merge seamlessly with the others.

www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/a8rakq/bugger_off_karen/

[quote Nellodee]@poppybritez, if you're referring to my calling a female gamer a "bitch", that was my bitter humour having been personally on the receiving end of male gamer misogyny many times.[/quote]
I obviously have no sense of humour. I don't tend to call women misogynist names, even in 'jest'.

I’ve never been called Karen Or a Karen

Yet many have on here 🤔