The fact that it’s a common Irish name is surely the origin of its use as a derogatory term.
It’s in current use in the U.K. Perhaps not a severe slur, not to a point where a parent might hesitate to name their child Michael, but it’s certainly derogatory.
Making a worthwhile contribution to society, I see.
Moderator Note
The post was already moderated. Don’t attack other users in this forum.
Oh, so it is not like mistreating some people. It is more like defining some people as not really human. Seems to me that telling people what they can say where is about free speech.
What’s your point? This is certainly a thread about what you are “free” to say on this Board, yes. Do you think you should be free to say anything here, without consequences?
All communities have norms of what is acceptable and what is not, enforced by informal or formal means. We’re discussing a specific case here. Your vague implication that “freedom of speech” is some kind of absolute principle that settles the matter is unhelpful. Freedom is never absolute, whether of speech or action.
Moderator Note
Let’s not get sidetracked into a discussion about free speech, especially since it doesn’t apply to message boards like ours.
The topic of this thread is whether or not “Karen” as a pejorative should be off-limits. Focus on that instead, please.
deleted after modnote (had it in edit for quite a while)
Let’s make it equal. If we get rid of Karen, how 'bout we get rid of “mansplain”.
Used 13 times in 2023 on the SDMB. More often than I expected.
But again, we’re not getting rid of any words to my knowledge.
Using “Karen” is lazy and could be abused, but I see no reason to bump this up to the modloop. We don’t really want to have a wordlist.
I think the argument against its use is reasonable but poorly presented in the OP of this thread.
Worth repeating:
Howsabout instead we leave things as they are, but use the terms with care.
I agree. My point (poorly made) was there are a ton of gendered insults that we use all the time and most of them are no big deal in the long run.
I think that’s the answer Karen isn’t like a racial slur, or even a misogynistic slur, but it can still be used in a misogynistic way. So moderate misogynistic usage, and not usages that aren’t misogynistic (or racist).
Can we make fun of people using it? Maybe call them Michaels (from The Office) as they think they’re being clever like he did always saying “that’s what she said”
It may not always be misogynistic, but it is almost always cringey and dumb.
You have to be careful to insult the post and not the poster unless you reserve the making fun of for the Pit.
So we can make fun of the use but not the user …
I feel like “Karen” is as potent a burn as “Democrat” (instead of “Democratic”).
Read: it isn’t. It’s just kind of a snarl word.
I also think that “mansplain” is far more directed to the action itself while “Karen” is far more ad hominem in nature.
Though I have nowhere near enough energy to get exercised about any of the above. I’ll assent elegantly to the majority on this one 
That’s an interesting proposition to discuss, but I’m not sure it holds up. Consider that it’s easy to imagine “male Karens” but I can’t quite conceptualize a woman mansplaining.
In any case, like you I am not personally worked up one way or the other, and can accept whatever the consensus is.
Every pejorative in the history of language has been termed by their users as descriptive. That’s exactly why sexism and racism are so insidious.
You go ahead and jump on Black Twitter and tell them they’re racist.
FWIW I personally think that societal power imbalances give contextual meanings to racist comments even if they are racist.
But more so, I’ve never found any good comes of telling anyone that they are racist. It is hard enough to discuss that what someone says or does has racist impact (which does not mean the person is racist).
Lastly, that said, my understanding is that the original usage was more calling out or at least identifying clueless unaware white privilege, which could present differently by gender, and I can’t count that as racist.
Clearly that is no longer the typical usage; it is just appropriated to mean clueless abuse of privilege of any sort and old.