Whew! (Wipes sweat from brow.)
Why Karen? There have always been rules of funny among comedians. I vaguely recall that comics generally feel words starting with certain consonants are “funnier”. From this source: 15 Comedy Hacks Every Young Writer Needs to Know | by Mike Johnston | Medium (2016), there is this:
- Words with the letter K are funny. I direct you to the hard sounds of the letters K, C and Qu.
· Candy Corn is funnier than Sweeties
· Lamb Chop is funnier than Filet Mignon
In fact, many hard consonants can be funny, especially if you really overemphasize the consonant. The letters T, P, G, D and B are also considered hard, but less effective than the hard K sound.
· Gum Drops is funnier than Lemonheads
· Banana is funnier than Apple
Every name, ever has been the butt of a joke at some point. Every name, ever has been associated with a bad or evil person.
Every name, ever has been used to demean or hurt someone.
Are we all to just be “They” from now on?
FTR, my coworker Karen is not a Karen and doesn’t mind the use of the term to describe the Karens who are Karening up the place.
Not every bad customer is a Karen, nor are all Karens middle-aged white women. A Karen is best defined as a customer who has an inflated sense of their own importance (aka “Main Character Syndrome”), a belief that The Customer Is Always Right No Matter What, and see any situation where they don’t get what they want as an act of war against them.
Another example from work - I had a lady the other night who wanted me to price-check some discontinued candy bars she found on our clearance rack. She said they were 28 cents, but they were ringing up as $1.08. I went to check and the tag indeed said $1.08 - the tag she was looking at was for miniature American flags left over from the 4th. I took pictures of both tags on my phone, went back to the checkstand and showed her - and then she asked me if I’d mark them down to 28 cents anyway “because of the confusion”.
Wanting something that’s already half-price marked down another 75% because YOU read the tag wrong? That’s Karen behavior.
I’ve had to deal with a lot of Karens and Keiths (or Kevins or Kens or whatevers).
They’re in lines at grocery stores, on roads, attending public gatherings, and occasionally clients of mine. I can’t say I have any extraordinary stories about them, because I try to disarm them with firm kindness. It usually works.
They’ve always been around. But I think some people now feel more free to fly their Jerk Flag.
Privately, I call them dipshits.
It’s not like I invented the word or generally watch people blather on the Internet (excepting this site). I know seven Karens and all of them are nice people. But I know two women named Isis, and they are nice people too. I know a woman named Eleanor Rigby in her nineties, predating the song.
People can be offended by whatever. No one minds outspoken men and women when the issues are important or reasonable, but this is not what the stereotype is generally referring to AFAIK.
I used to work for a guy named Ronald MacDonald. He was a few years older than the hamburger clown. Which meant the clown was invented when he was in grade school. He was … damaged … by the experience. But a great guy overall.
Bottom line: As @Beckdawrek said, every name is a butt of jokes and is also the tag for a lot of decent people. Folks getting excited about the term “Karen” as some evil thing to be stamped out need to get a grip.
Ron. (@melodyharmonius)
I’m a John, not a john 
, or a john.
You beat me to Ron. I’ll add that the female equivalent was a Ron-duh.
While you’re fixing things, how about the first post? 
Due to the fact that I don’t go out in public much I’ve never had any direct exposure to a stereotypical Karen. However, I was once badly burned in a personal relationship by a woman named Karen, so the name does have bad connotations for me.
We are free to fix titles, but we don’t edit posts unless there’s a compelling reason to do so (spoiler, e.g.).
Whereas I prefer “Keith” as neither my brother Keven nor my uncle Kevin fit the description. I also know several Karens who don’t fit the description but I do know a few who do.
I do think it is about control, but on several levels. First, more women have discovered or been told that they can control their own narratives, and are trying to do exactly that. But they are unaware that they are trying to control other people’s stories too at the same time those other people have learned to speak up and say “Stop trying to control my story!” There will be conflict until we all learn to recognize that we need to see things from other people’s points of view, too. And even then conflict will continue.
I’ve dealt with many Keiths and Karens. My boss is quite a bit of a Karen, but she has learned that she can’t control me. I will take constructive criticism, but I do refuse to take it when she baits me, but that’s because I understand that her baiting me is a result of her own frustration with others. She has started to respond in a more adult to adult manner, thank goodness. She’s a very likeable person in many ways and I’d like to think well of her.
“Chad” is the name incels give to supposed hunky types who monopolize the “Stacys” that incels find unattainable.
So, Chad is probably a mixed blessing as names go.
That’s what I figured you’d say. Oh, well – the grocer’s apostrophe doesn’t bother me near as much as people who say “whom” when they should be using “who”, or those who say “I” instead of “me”, or “badly” instead of “bad”…
I’m probably guilty of a couple of those.
And now I’m thinking of an episode of The Simpsons where they’re watching the pilot for a television show featuring a cop named Homer Simpson who is smart, athletic, and good at his job. When the series was picked up, the Homer Simpson character was changed to a doofus and everyone started laughing at poor Homer.
Since you mentioned “The Simpsons”, my parents had some friends for many years named Marge and Homer. (He died a few years ago, and she’s probably not going to live much longer herself.) Their surname is not Simpson, and they had one child who is not named Bart, Lisa, or Maggie, but yeah, their real names are indeed Marge and Homer.
One of my Facebook friends, an elderly Hispanic man who I know through my old church, posted a diatribe against the $15 minimum wage a while back, which I agreed with except for one thing: It had a reference to one LaKeisha McBurgerflipper. I couldn’t believe he would post something this racist, or this classist, and told him so.