Karen

Sunday

Kara Kennedy

Je suis Karen

As I creep into my mid-twenties something is changing. I’m not quite young enough to be carefree, I pay my bills and taxes on time and worry about the noise pollution level in the area I’m looking to move to. I’ve swapped my six-inch heels for practical sneakers, and I tut at teenagers causing a commotion on the subway. All of which led a friend to accuse me of becoming “something of a Karen.” The charge is a serious one these days. You see, Karen is no longer a playful term used to describe your entitled aunt who complains about slow service in a restaurant, flipping her asymmetrical bob in irritation. To call someone a Karen in 2023 is to wade waist-deep into the culture wars. At some point over the last few years, the word became more than a tongue-in-cheek jibe.

karen

Thursday

Paul du Quenoy

The Karens of Uber get their DEI chief suspended

Karens are, to use a leftist term, “problematic.” In use as a pejorative for four or five years now, “Karen” appropriates a common Generation X girl’s name to refer to an entitled middle-aged woman who demands exceptional treatment, undeserved deference and unearned “privilege” to make her way through life or to express power through unwarranted concern for others. Karens are generally believed to be middle-class or slightly above, sport an unsmiling no-nonsense mien and favor a pert bob hairdo that stylists now routinely call the “speak-to-the-manager,” after a request Karens commonly make when they encounter disappointment.

uber bo young lee

Sunday

Christopher Caldwell

What’s in a name?

I used to have a cantankerous old relative who hewed to generalizations drawn from long experience. One of them concerned people named “Adam.” On a Sunday morning twenty years ago, as we sat around reading the papers, I mentioned Adam Sandler — or maybe it was Adam West or Adam Vinatieri. “All Adams are assholes,” he grumbled. “You ever notice that?” I tried to respond with some piety about how these people were not to blame for being called Adam. But I had a nagging sense that that was not how the Wheel of Onomastic Destiny spun. I had spent much of my adult life looking for heroic qualities in people bearing my own middle name, which is Scott. Even before I was fully emerged from childhood, Scott had acquired a bad name.

name

Monday

Matt Purple

The rise of the Joels

Several weeks back, I went for a run in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria in Northern Virginia. It’s the sort of place where ‘Black Lives Matter’ signs cry out of security-alarmed windows and the dollar-to-fried-pickle exchange rate is instantly available upon request. I was hoofing it along when suddenly a guy leaned out of nowhere and shouted, ‘Why don’t you wear a mask if you’re going to jog on the sidewalk?!’ I told him to screw off and ran on, but my first reaction was one of pity. In Northern Virginia, the danger of getting mown down by a waif on a Lime scooter is real and ever-present; maybe he was just on edge. It was only later that I realized he may as well have just wished me dead — people have asphyxiated from wearing masks while exercising.

joel

Monday

Cockburn

Planned Parenthood is very sorry

Being a somewhat old-fashioned person, Cockburn is skeptical of latter-day feminism and the utter sanctity of a woman’s right to choose. So it’s quite odd that he also feels compelled to defend progressive womanhood from Planned Parenthood, which quite unexpectedly has come out in favor of misogyny. ‘I’m the Head of Planned Parenthood. We’re Done Making Excuses for Our Founder,’ says the headline from current Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson. The context is Planned Parenthood’s ongoing cancellation of Margaret Sanger over her support for ideas that are today unpopular, such as sterilization, eugenics, and freedom of speech.

planned parenthood

Thursday

Cockburn

Emmanuel Macron is a Karen

Cockburn dislikes the latent misogyny behind the rise of this term ‘Karen’, which is used to describe any white woman who is caught being aggressive on social media. Then again, Karens don’t have to be female; plenty of men fit the term perfectly. One of them is the President of France.Yes, Emmanuel Macron lost his rag again on Wednesday, this time berating a French journalist who dared to try to cover the President’s complicated maneuvers in Lebanon.

emmanuel macron

Thursday

Cockburn

If a video is viral, who cares if it’s fake?

After two months, the 'mostly peaceful' label for the riots gripping American cities is wearing a touch thin. That’s not just because it fails to satisfy conservatives and moderates, who puzzle over how 'mostly peaceful' demonstrations leave so many downtowns torched. It also fails to satisfy the actual rioters. They insist their demonstrations are very violent, courtesy of brutal tactics from the police officers they want abolished.'Proof' of such violence went viral on Wednesday. The video was first shared by Twitter user @Andy_Resist, but was swiftly magnified by a different Andy. This one bore Twitter’s hallowed blue checkmark and enough followers to populate a small city, or a few dozen 'mostly peaceful' protests. https://twitter.

fake news

Friday

Cockburn

In North Carolina, Chad beats Karen

‘Chad’ and ‘Karen’ did battle on Tuesday in an important North Carolina GOP primary race.Our Chad is Madison Cawthorn, a 24-year-old with a six-pack and diamond-sharp jawline. He clobbered our Karen, Lynda Bennett, a middle-aged white woman with a bob haircut, in the contest for Rep. Mark Meadows’s former seat in the House of Representatives.The race wasn’t even close: Mr Cawthorn emerged with 65.8 percent of the vote, compared to 34.2 percent earned by Mrs Bennett. Cockburn was surprised to learn that Karen did not keel over with a fake injury, call the cops, or provoke an online mob into canceling Cawthorn.Even more impressive is that Bennett, a former businesswoman, lost in spite of endorsements from President Trump and Meadows.

madison cawthorn

Tuesday

Ben Sixsmith

Viral justice and the demented war on Karens

If you are on the internet you have no doubt heard of ‘Karens’. ‘Karens’ are middle-aged white women who have a fondness for reporting people, especially black people, to the authorities. ‘The archetypal “Karen”,’ says Vox in one of its invaluable explainers, ‘Is blonde, has multiple young kids, and is usually an anti-vaxxer.’ She ‘has a “can I speak to the manager” haircut and a controlling, superior attitude to go along with it.’In practice, calling someone a ‘Karen’ is generally an excuse to abuse a middle-aged white woman and make it seem woke.

karen justice

Friday

Karol Markowicz

Don’t let Karen kill your community

I knew I was dealing with a Karen when the police showed up. We had only recently moved in and we had a serious leak in one of our bathrooms. We called a plumber for emergency repairs. A woman on our block confronted my husband about it and, despite his explanation that the work was essential, she called the cops. Along with all the other problems coronavirus had wrought on our society, we are witnessing the rise of the ‘Karen’. Pre-corona, the term ‘Karen’ was used to describe the neighborhood busybody, the woman in front of you at Target who gets into an argument at the check-out and demands to see the manager. But coronavirus has given Karen a new role in life and more power than she’s ever had before.

karen