Je Suis Karen
22nd June 2023
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. A Karen is now a racial archetype: a particular kind of privileged white woman. And if you are labeled one, especially by strangers online, there is every chance that your life will be irreparably destroyed.