Misogyny and the influence of the ‘Karen’ meme.

[AgnesRose]

Lots of discussion of extreme misogyny and Incel culture after the horrific shootings in Plymouth. I can’t help but think that the casual misogyny of the ‘Karen’ meme really contributes and feeds the problem of entrenched misogyny in society. Women are depicted as ‘entitled’ ‘scolds’ and ‘nags’. No male equivalent has gained the same notoriety, of course. Thoroughly demoralising how so-called progressives on both sides of the Atlantic use it with glee too - young women as well. In the U.K. Karen is the name of older women and are more likely to be working class.

Oh so it's racist as well as agist and misogynistic ? Triple whammy

@PlanDeRaccordement

Whatever. White people appropriate a meme used by we nonwhites to call out racist white women and then tell me to not use it because you’ve been using it misogynistically, and tell me I must just call people racists.

Another bit of my culture just like that....taken by white people and I’m told by white women not to use it.

You take and you break.

Is using a Danish name for a meme not appropriating from the Danish?

I suppose Karen Blixen must have pissed off a lot of the locals appropriating their land.

I did a lot of research on the origins of the Karen meme. It was originally used to denigrate female Nintendo gamers, then used by a venomous ex husband to discuss his ex-wife, then appeared in a Saturday night live sketch about a whites woman bringing potato salad to a barbecue. Somewhere along the line it merged with the “speak to the manager” meme and finally got applied to women who leverage their whiteness against black men.

Basically, the anti-racist usage was the most recent and is a useful strap on to prevent the calling out of an entire package of ageism and misogyny.

Karen is a pejorative slang term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman who uses her privilege to get her way or police other people's behaviors.

Stereotyping women is ok then? Because you cannot use your words to describe a behaviour you don't agree with?

I made a huge set of posts with dated web links to each new usage in another thread, but I really can’t be bothered to search or it out or redo the research. It’s probably findable - I think it may have been in Aibu.

I know very well how it started in the US. But we are in the UK, where the term can be directed at any woman who dares to assert herself... it is used to try and shut women up. Nothing to do with race, simple old misogyny....

@IvyTwines2

'Karen' and 'T*rf', both fashionable terms of abuse used to dismiss women who assert their normal civil rights and defend their boundaries and safe spaces. There's a particular emphasis on making it cool and trendy amongst the young to dismiss and silence the voices of middle-aged and older women, women who have many decades of lived experience and wisdom as adult human females. Who benefits from that loss of the voices of female lived experience? Not young women, but they're the ones being encouraged by social media to attack and dismiss. Funny that.

This.

I found my post:

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:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLkmZzcedhs

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/

Erm, so Karen is a term used allegedly by black women to describe racist white women, but it's been 'appropriated' and yet it's women who are at fault?

@PlanDeRaccordement

Whatever. White people appropriate a meme used by we nonwhites to call out racist white women and then tell me to not use it because you’ve been using it misogynistically, and tell me I must just call people racists.

Another bit of my culture just like that....taken by white people and I’m told by white women not to use it.

You take and you break.

The Karen meme / insult is part of your culture . And now its been stolen by The Man. Oh ffs. Never heard of Chad btw. Are you American? It seems likely Karen applies to different demographics in Europe. More snobbery in its usage here and less of a racial element perhaps?

I’m pretty sure in this case ‘non-whites” appropriated a misogynistic slur used by a whites man to insult his ex-wife.

If anyone wants to see how it feels to have their own name used in such a derogatory fashion follow the link and enter your own name. Doing so will change all the current uses of the name Karen to your name.

karenismyname.org/renamer

I changed my name at the beginning of this year and I know I’m not the only woman to have done so.

@PlanDeRaccordement

Whatever. White people appropriate a meme used by we nonwhites to call out racist white women and then tell me to not use it because you’ve been using it misogynistically, and tell me I must just call people racists.

Another bit of my culture just like that....taken by white people and I’m told by white women not to use it.

You take and you break.

Being black doesn't give you a free pass to be misogynistic.

@Jaysmith71

Was there ever an eponimous villainess? Were any of the women singled out for this opprobrium so named?

In the UK, we had the "Sharon & Tracey" phenomenon, but the two icons there were fictional.

Interestingly, not. ‘Karen’ is a placeholder name that appears to have been the choice over other popular names of that generation such as ‘Susan’, ‘Linda’ or ‘Lisa’. When the viral videos from the US were circulating last year (and ever since) here, there was discussion on a thread I read about why ‘Karen’ of the ‘speak to the manager’ memes was being used again instead of the name ‘Amy’ the actual name of a few women who were in these videos. The consensus was that more people would object to the name ‘Amy’ being used because it is considered a younger women’s name.

I was being gaslit, mentally and emotionally abused, poisoned and strangled during sex by an older man when I was in my early twenties. He didn't have any male friends but a lot of middle aged female friends. most of them didnt know each other. I later realised he had uses for them and mostly because he was very worried what others thought of him. They gave him a good reputation I suppose. I later found out this man was suspended for sexual harassment and these women knew that and sided with him. He destroyed the victims reputation and convinced all around him that she was mentally unwell or as he liked to call her a mad c**t. The woman he spent the most time with would later lie for him and say she had ensured that I couldnt apply for a masters degree in the university she worked in and said that the police would be called on me and I would be escorted off campus, she made it seem that everyone would be on the look out for me. It turned out that none of this was true and I reported her to the provost. It turned out this was something they cooked up together. This woman was like Ghislaine maxwell in so many ways and I have heard similar stories from other women. He got another woman pregnant years before and convinced, coerced her into having an abortion. He payed for travel expenses, hotel, fancy dinner etc and as soon as the abortion was done he went quiet on her said he felt upset and regretted her having the abortion, said he found it hard to look at her for doing what she did and said he needed time alone. She went back to her place and weeks went back with unanswered texts, blocked calls etc so she went over to his place and knocked, she saw him closing the curtains so she went around the back. She looked in the back window and he gestured "1 second" so she waited and he phoned the police on her and said she was stalking him. He spread stories about her with the help of his female friends who had connections. One of his friends put in a complaint about the woman and so did he so the poor woman got sacked from her job on top of everything else. I got this straight from her over a coffee when she spotted me in town. He always told me to stay away from her that she was unstable and dangerous. I would always see her walking around town with this dead look in her eyes, sad face so she did look mentally unwell. These other women knew what he did to her and didnt care. I can't explain these womens behaviour but denying that it happens really doesn't help create a sisterhood.

I think the poster above is in the wrong place.

Back to the topic: I think accusing women fighting against misogyny of racism and cultural appropriation is unlikely to win any poster friends. It’s quite clear how the name Karen is being used atm, and even looking into it’s origins does not actually seat it’s use as an insult against women as being part of black culture. In fact, I’m baffled as to why anyone would want to lay claim to such behaviour as their own. I was accused of cultural appropriation recently on a thread discussing bell tents of all things recently - apparently bell tents are white people taking indigenous American peoples’ way of living and turning it into a shallow leisure activity.

If women feel insulted by a particular slur, then it is likely someone is insulting them. To ask them to stop feeling insulted because you feel more insulted that they are using an insult you feel is your insult, that’s actually going beyond stupid.

@backinthebox

I think the poster above is in the wrong place.

Back to the topic: I think accusing women fighting against misogyny of racism and cultural appropriation is unlikely to win any poster friends. It’s quite clear how the name Karen is being used atm, and even looking into it’s origins does not actually seat it’s use as an insult against women as being part of black culture. In fact, I’m baffled as to why anyone would want to lay claim to such behaviour as their own. I was accused of cultural appropriation recently on a thread discussing bell tents of all things recently - apparently bell tents are white people taking indigenous American peoples’ way of living and turning it into a shallow leisure activity.

If women feel insulted by a particular slur, then it is likely someone is insulting them. To ask them to stop feeling insulted because you feel more insulted that they are using an insult you feel is your insult, that’s actually going beyond stupid.

I'm replying to posters from page one. My responses are not in the wrong place if you see my first post on page one.

Gab2- I think you were replying to me, and I think you were treated horribly. But I don't think what you're describing is generally considered part of Karenism.

That's not to say the attributes of a "Karen" make sense. She supposed to be around 55 yo but also actively rejecting vaccinating her toddlers for fear of autism.

What is the equivalent name for a racist man? Or are only women racist according to this meme?

The meme is not primarily about being racist. It really isn’t, it never was. It came from the “Fuck you, Karen” Reddit mostly. It was a site about one man raging about his ex wife, and became about any man raging about any woman in the same age group. Every possible sin any woman of a similar age got rolled into one package, because we all know middle aged women are responsible for everything that is bad about the world.

Saying it’s meme about racists, or even about women who are horrible to service staff, disguises and excuses the fact that it’s just a meme that allows any and all hatred of women under one all encompassing umbrella of misogyny.

Inagre with you too OP. It's terrible how the term Karen is used to try and shut middle aged women up for being old and past it.

Is using a Danish name for a meme not appropriating from the Danish?

Please read up on appropriation before making such an ignorant comment.

What ...do some rusurch like...

Please read up on appropriation before making such an ignorant comment.

Oh, is "appropriation" a sacred term now that people aren't allowed to use in jest?