When Your Name Becomes a Running Joke

And what “Karens” can do about it

When I was a kid and looked up my name in 1970s-era baby books, the listing for “Karen” always read something like “Short for Katherine or Kathryn. Meaning: caring and kind.” In 2020, a Google search for my first name immediately reveals this Wikipedia definition: “A pejorative slang term that is used to typify a person perceived to be entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is considered appropriate or necessary.”

This spring, social media outlets have been full of posts nailing “Karen” for the obnoxious, middle-aged, middle-class white woman she is. In response, I opted to do what any other white, middle-aged, middle-class “Karen” who can’t figure out what’s going on would do: I did some research/Googled “Karen meme.”

Luckily my “research” led me to a terrific piece in The Atlantic, “How ‘Karen’ Became a Coronavirus Villain.” In it, tech journalist Kaitlyn Tiffany examined how my first name had indeed evolved into a “pejorative slang term.” For starters, the name “Karen” has been used for a long time by black people fed up with white women who seem intent on having the world cater to their wishes — and whose complaints about and reactions to occasional inconveniences reveal their lack of understanding of the much more critical issues faced every day by people who are not white.

As the COVID-19 quarantine and its related stressors began to wear on people of all backgrounds, more began to lash out at “Karens” — specifically white, middle-aged, middle-class women who not only complain about stupid things but do stupid things for their own benefit, the rest of humanity be damned. According to Kansas State University Professor Heather Suzanne Woods, who researches memes and was quoted by Tiffany in her Atlantic article, “Karens” are defined by their “entitlement, selfishness” and “desire to complain.” In fact, “A Karen ‘demands the world exist according to her standards with little regard for others, and she is willing to risk or demean others to achieve her ends.’”

Yikes, if I’d never met any Karens, I’d be pretty wary. But I’ve met many — not all of them middle-aged and/or white, and not even the middle-aged, white ones I know fit that description. Which is why the abuse aimed at “Karens” by the meme featuring our name never painted all “Karens” with a broad stroke. It targeted traditional, stick-in-the-mud, middle-aged, middle-class, white “Karens.” And the more miserable and demanding such “Karens” were deemed to be, the funnier the joke and the more popular the meme.

But not everyone found it funny. The comments that follow one article in particular, “The ‘Karen’ meme is everywhere — and isn’t racist or sexist” by Ernesto Hernandez in the DePaul University student news site The DePaulia, made it clear that some consider attacks on all things “Karen” to be racist, sexist, and distressing. I find the fact that any white person in the U.S. would call any attack on any group of white people racist to be much more distressing than a silly meme in that it reveals the incredible lack of understanding white Americans have for the realities of racism in our country. The original point of black people adopting “Karen” as shorthand for white women who demand the world cater to them was to point out how oblivious such women are to their white privilege. Any argument that the “Karen” meme is racist pretty much proves that point.

The Irony of it All

As another educator interviewed for the piece in The Atlantic — André Brock, “an associate professor at Georgia Tech who has studied Black Twitter” — puts it, the fact that “white women isolating in single-family homes — whose lifestyle puts them at low risk of exposure to the [corona]virus — have been getting militant about teenagers wearing face masks or judgmental about city dwellers’ inability to execute perfect social distancing” is “deeply ironic.” The irony and resultant insult will be much worse, though, if those same women rush to reclaim their pre-quarantine routines in ways that put at risk the people who serve them at restaurants, coffee shops, salons, spas, and other places they frequent. Or if such women fail to treat front-line workers of all types with the respect, patience, and understanding they deserve.

So what should the “Karens” of the world do? Be aware that they have benefited from white privilege their entire life and do not wield it as a weapon the way a certain white woman did recently in Central Park. Exercise empathy for others and self-control when things don’t go their way. Think about the times they’ve had a true “Karen” moment — and how to better deal with a similar situation next time. I know I’ve had them, and I remember and regret each one. I’ve tried to learn from them — about my own limits and what I need to do differently to keep from snapping at someone in the future. But I chalk those moments up to being human, not being the ridiculous monster portrayed by a meme. And while I still don’t like the use of my first name as a “pejorative slang term,” I get where it came from. And I find some related posts pretty darn funny.

I definitely don’t find them racist. As I noted above, the original point of black people adopting “Karen” as shorthand for white women who demand the world cater to them was to point out how oblivious such women are to their white privilege. Any argument that the “Karen” meme is racist pretty much proves that point. Especially now.

If you liked this, you might also like:

I write fiction, poetry, and nonfiction when I’m not working as a copy editor. Author of the novel One Sister’s Song.