Karen is a pejorative slang term typically used to refer to an upper middle-class white American woman who is perceived as entitled or excessively demanding.
[5] Kansas State University professor Heather Suzanne Woods, whose research interests include memes, said that a Karen's defining characteristics are a sense of entitlement, a willingness and desire to complain, and a self-centered approach to interacting with others.
[8] Rachel Charlene Lewis, writing for Bitch, agrees, saying that a Karen does not view others as individuals and instead moves "through the world prepared to fight faceless conglomerate of lesser-than people who won't give her what she wants and feels she deserves".
[23] The Time article states, The historical narrative of white women’s victimhood goes back to myths that were constructed during the era of American slavery.
This narrative that was the overarching theme of Birth of a Nation, the 1915 film that was the first movie to be shown at the White House, and is often cited as the inspiration for the rebirth of the KKK.
[23]University of Virginia media researcher Meredith Clark has said that the idea of a white woman in the vicinity of whom black people feel a need to be careful because she would not hesitate to use her "privilege" at the expense of others "has always been there; it just hasn't always been so specific to one person's name".
[7][24] The Guardian notes that "the image of a white woman calling police on black people put the lie to the myth of racial innocence".
Contemporary Karens have been compared to Carolyn Bryant (a white woman whom Emmett Till was accused of offending, resulting in his lynching), and in literature, Mayella Ewell (a fictional character in the 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird).
[5] "It was through that performance that Amy Cooper took on the mantle of an American archetype: the white woman who weaponizes her vulnerability to exact violence upon a Black man.
In literature, she is Scarlett O’Hara sending her husband out to join a KKK lynching party or Mayella Ewell testifying under oath that a Black man who had helped her had raped her.
[5][25] André Brock, a Georgia Tech professor of black digital culture, connected the virality of the meme in the summer of 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and the Central Park birdwatching incident,[needs context] noting that both incidents had occurred the same weekend during a period when much of the world had been forced to stay home and had plenty of free time to watch the videos.
[23] He said that the virality of the two videos was the result of an "interest convergence" in which the pandemic "intersected with collective outrage over police brutality" and "highlighted the extreme violence—and potentially fatal consequences—of a white woman selfishly calling the cops out of spite and professed fear".
"[5] Multiple writers have rejected accusations of the term being equivalent to "the N-word for white women", and when a Twitter user ran a poll asking if the word should be banned on that platform, over 96% voted "no".
[18][26][27] Karen Attiah, Global Opinions editor for The Washington Post, claims that it lacks the historical context to be a slur and that calling it one trivializes actual discrimination.
[4][29] It's considered negative because it reflects a disregard for others' perspectives, a tendency to escalate minor issues, and an entitlement to special treatment, all of which can lead to conflict and harm in social interactions.
[30] Similarly, in November 2020, a tweet calling Elon Musk "Space Karen" over comments he made regarding the effectiveness of COVID-19 testing became viral.
Hadley Freeman, columnist and features writer for The Guardian,[41] argues that use of the meme has become less about describing behavior than controlling it and "telling women to shut up".
[42] Jennifer Weiner, writing in The New York Times during the COVID-19 pandemic, said the meme had succeeded in silencing her, saying she had had to balance her desire to complain about a nearby man coughing into the open air, hawking and spitting on the sidewalk, with her fear of being called a Karen.
[45] Matt Schimkowitz, a senior editor at Know Your Meme, stated to Business Insider in 2019 that the term "just kind of took over all forms of criticism towards white women online.
In early January 2021, Ponsetto was arrested in Ventura County, California, and extradited to New York, where she was charged with grand larceny, attempted robbery, child endangerment, and two counts of assault, as she also attacked Harrold Sr. during the altercation.
[59] The Act was passed unanimously in October of that year,[60] after which Williams noted "these memes are actually doing logical and political work of helping us get to legal changes".
[1][62] In July 2020, an internet meme in the form of a parody advertisement for a fictional American Girl "Girl of the Year" character depicted as a personification of the "Karen" stereotype, wearing a track suit, bob haircut and openly carrying a semi-automatic pistol while defiantly violating face mask guidelines mandated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, provoked criticism from the doll line, who took umbrage to the use of their name and trade dress, stating that they were "disgusted" by a post from brand strategist Adam Padilla under the online persona "Adam the Creator", and "are working with the appropriate teams at American Girl to ensure this copyright violation is handled appropriately.