I’ve always interpreted “Karen” as a pejorative meaning privileged white woman who complains a lot. Some are quick to reclaim the term though.
Generic jerktitude is not part of the definition, except to the extent that “Karen” implies casual racism. It’s gender specific and race specific and behavior specific. Compare soccer mom, WASP.
For example I’d say calling a Black woman a Karen is sort of accusing her of being a race traitor. And calling a Black man a Karen is not only an accusation of being a race traitor, but also of being overly effeminate.
I’m against banning the word, but it should be considered an insult.
I don’t think so, at least I haven’t observed it. One concern though is that the meme might have the unintended effect of making women afraid to complain over completely legitimate issues in fear of being labeled as a “Karen”, and that would of course be very bad.
On the other hand, I see that as a reason to condemn the meme itself, but not a reason to forbid its use on the board as being a direct attack on women.
If something that was originally a proper name becomes widely accepted to describe a category of people, it can transition to become non-capitalized. From @Beckdawreck’s examples - nobody wouldn’t capitalize a john (client of a prostitute). I think a mick (Irishman), a charlie (foolish person) are fine either way.
“Bitch” (and “Asshole”), applied appropriately, defines someone who is being evil
“Karen” defines someone who is being a specific type of Lawful Evil, attempting to use their wealth/privilege to work the system against others they feel are below them for petty grievances.
All Karens are bitch/assholes, not all bitch/assholes are Karens. Even “Self-entitled Asshole” doesn’t work since a self-entitled asshole might threaten physical violence or key your car or other actions that don’t really fall under “Karen” behavior (plus I assume most bitch/assholes are self-entitled, hence the behavior).
I’ve never heard it either. Poking around in dictionaries online, it appears to be British slang.
That’s military slang and it refers specifically to the Viet Cong, which were a guerilla force separate from the Vietnamese Army. Viet Cong was abbreviated VC, which in the NATO alphabet was Victor Charlie (the NATO alphabet is alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, etc, see here for details). Victor Charlie got quickly abbreviated to just Charlie.
Some people use Charlie incorrectly to refer to all Vietnamese, or to both the VC and the regular army (basically all Vietnamese enemy troops, during the war). Technically it refers only to the VC.
But, but people here claim that “karen” is race-blind and is applied to all races and creed equally???
How would we know? Look, I participated -decades ago- in a round table with HR people. One claimed that if a resume came on on plain copier paper, she would toss it on the spot, as it showed that they didnt care. Another disagreed, and said that if the resume was on high quality paper, it showed the applicant was pretentious, and boom- tossed.
In any case, employment is not what we are talking about. Certain terms and words here are discouraged, as that is how we want THIS boards environment to be.
I am suggesting we add the casual use of “karen” as a pejorative.
But only by females, who of course "don’t know their right place. Males are Alphas and get to ask for the manager, when those girls do it, they do it for frivolous and silly feminine reasons". That’s why is is pretty much only applied to females (No one can decide what to call a male “karen” and a quick search of karen memes show is always applied to females) And usually by males.
Not my definition.
Which means sexist and bigoted.
He knows that. He was just being a crowmanyclouds.
Where did you get that idea from? The point of the term is self-entitlement. The reasons behind it aren’t all that important, but frivolous and silly masculine reasons are just as common as frivolous and silly feminine reasons. Mostly people assume the reason is that the person, no matter their identity, has been living a privileged life.
If you’re saying that a “Karen” is someone who engages in behavior that would be socially acceptable in a man, I don’t think that matches the way the term is commonly understood.
By who? Certainly not me, and I doubt anyone on this board would seriously state that they believe that men should have an assumption of entitlement.
Perhaps the term in question originated as away to describe women who were acting as self-entitled as many men have traditionally. Personally I would rather call anyone acting like that an entitled asshole. However, it is a mark of progress that women now feel so comfortable acting like a traditional self entitled man that there is now a term for it. You should be happy that this term is increasingly referring to men. You should be offended by this idea of ‘Kevin’ or ‘Keith’ being used as an alternative term though, as if a woman’s name wasn’t good enough to be used in reference to a man.
Lots of claims have been claimed. But only the claimant is making the claims regarding many of the claims. Since no one else really is, this thread is essentially trolling.
