Name: The Origin Of The Karen Meme
Uploaded: 2020-11-04T19:40:07.000Z
Duration: 10 min 10 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

And yes, I have definitely seen the Karen meme.

Why is it everywhere and where did it come from?

When most people think of Karen, an image of a white lady

with Kate Gosselin's 2008 haircut comes to mind.

- The meme has evolved from someone entitled,

and always wants to speak to the manager,

do something a little more complex in higher stakes.

- Karen has come to represent a white entitled woman,

who is capable of causing harm to people around her,

- Get access to the river! - Yell at me some more.

with a complete lack of awareness of her privilege.

Well, the name's fallen in popularity as of 2018

Karen was consistently in the top 10 lists

I didn't know a single other Karen my age.

- But why aren't we dissing other names of that era?

this name in particular, became the inspiration

Some editors point to Ray Liotta yelling at Karen

in the 1990 film, GoodFellas. Karen, where's the stuff

- I feel like Dane Cook made Karen a thing, 15 years ago.

- Every group has a Karen, and she's always a bag of douche.

- A clearer connection to the modern day meaning of Karen,

can be found in the 2004 film, Mean Girls.

- Oh my God Karen, you can't just ask people

- It's also possible Mean Girl's writer Tina Fey,

used the name Karen because it was already

It's really a what came first chicken or the egg situation.

But long before the name Karen became a pejorative,

the character type had long been recognized by another name.

According to Georgia tech Professor Andre Brock,

black people used to refer to a white woman

exerting undue power over them as a Miss Ann.

Even after slavery, there was a general fear

that a white woman could easily make a false

and send a lynch mob after any particular black man.

the rise of smartphones and social media,

- Has anyone ever called me a Karen pejoratively?

I don't think so, but I really wouldn't know.

into the middle age entitled white lady category

And so no one's ever called me Karen pejoratively.

people were filming and posting more incidents with Karens.

It was common for each woman perpetuating

the incident, to get around a alliterative nickname.

For example in 2018, there was Permit Patty.

A woman who called the cops on an eight year old black girl,

- This lady right here wants to sit here and call the police

Subtitles ListPlay Video

The Origin Of The Karen Meme

recognize

privilege

associate

character