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It's wild how "Karen" started out as calling out racism and now it's just a way for sexist people to shame women for not performing gender roles. (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net to c/chat@hexbear.net

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Good women are young, quiet, have pretty long hair (never dyed a unnatural colour though!) and never speak up about being mistreated, ever. You want to complain about a genuine problem? Sorry, you're a Karen. Ask people to social distance? Karen. Nicely tell people to please be quiet during a movie? Karen. Ripped off by corporate greed and want a refund? Karen.

Be silent, be feminine and behave, woman.

It sucks because it actually used to describe real harrassment that black service workers experience. Now it's just "Mouthy mom aged women with short dyed hair"

I've even seen a male black service worker be called a "male Karen" I shit you not.

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[–] Carcharodonna@hexbear.net 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I thought it originally came from that early Nintendo Switch advert where a girl brings her switch to a hip rooftop party full of ridiculously attractive people and they all start playing. The "Karen" thing was a joke about her trying to force people to play video games instead of socializing.

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That sounds way funnier than what it really is lol

[–] Carcharodonna@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Obviously it morphed quite a bit but I feel like I remember this being the origin of “Karen”: https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/nintendo-switch-karen

[–] tocopherol@hexbear.net 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There were uses in the same vein before that, from wikipedia:

For the term "Karen", several possible origins have been proposed.[11] Early uses of Karen as a joke punchline include the airheaded character Karen (played by Amanda Seyfried) from the 2004 film Mean Girls, Dane Cook's 2005 sketch "The Friend Nobody Likes" on his album Retaliation,[12]

I remember at the time the Dane Cook special that had this joke was super popular, I heard people quote the joke before the term became as widespread.

[–] sleeplessone@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago

Dane Cook

You've just unlocked bad memories of the aughts.