Strong disagree. The whole "Karen" meme reeks of old-fashioned misogyny wrapped up in 2020s language. "A woman, complaining? How dare she!". I recognise the meme is about entitled women being rude, but that behaviour is hardly isolated to women.
Where's the simple line that gets crossed? If I ask for a refund but am refused, am I being "entitled" when I push it? There are some obvious examples of both ends of the spectrum, but a lot of less obvious ones in the middle.
I worry these memes encourage timid people not to even ask for what they are legitimately entitled to, for fear of ending up on some Reddit channel.
Yeah, it's all subjective and contextual. I don't know if I or anyone else can give an easy checklist to define what is or isn't "Karen" or entitled behavior, but having done my time in various positions in the service industry, it's certainly something I can know when I see it.
If I had to try I'd say it's when you have a problem and you try to resolve it in a way that gets you the most personal benefit and hormone rush instead of just getting the problem solved in an efficient manner, that's Karen behavior. Like if you order a sandwich with no tomatoes and it comes with tomatoes on it; if you call over the waiter, describe the problem in a normal tone of voice without assigning blame, and ask for a replacement, that's fine. If you use a tone of voice loud enough that other tables can hear, blame the server or cook or even take the tomatoes personally as if "ignoring" your request was a personal attack, launch into a diatribe bout how you could have bene killed if you were allergic to tomatoes, demand not only a replacement sandwich but a free side or even your whole order for free, etc, that's Karen behavior; those sorts of actions are getting you free stuff and serotonin bumps but they're causing undue stress on the staff and other people around you, who are human and have their own limitations in terms of stress and mental health, what they can do in terms of the law or dealing with their managers, etc - and they're certainly not solving the original problem (you want a sandwich without tomatoes) any faster.
As Scott says in Weak Men Are Superweapons [1], a meme aimed against a specific, easily disliked subgroup is unavoidably an attack on the entire group by association.
It is impossible to say "Karen, who is a woman, bad" without implying "women Karens, women bad." Or if there is a way to disentangle them, it certainly won't fit in a meme.
> a meme aimed against a specific, easily disliked subgroup is unavoidably an attack on the entire group by association.
So that comment, by attacking a specific, easily disliked subgroup of memes is undeniably an attack on all of the memes by association. Or am I applying this wrong?
I think so. If the argument is that people will make associations that the original person did not intend, then it seems quite possible that pointing out bad usages of memes will result in people likely memes less overall. This is but one factor and could be cancelled out by many other factors causing them to like memes more. I'm guessing this applies to humans in general and is caused not just by memes but by any transfer of information that biases schemas we use to judge situations. But this also applies to any terms of negative connotations where there is some subgroup associated with a larger group (even if the association is wrong, it just needs to be perceived). So even terms like 'racist' or 'incel' end up with collateral damage.
All right, let me explicitly substitute for pronouns: your comment was aimed against specific, easily disliked subgroup, namely, "Karen" memes, and so it is unavoidably an attack on the entire group, namely, memes, by association.
It is impossible to say "a "Karen" meme, which is a meme, bad" without implying "memes "Karen" memes, memes bad." Or if there is a way to disentangle them, it certainly won't fit in a comment.
It's amazing how many arguments ad argumentum are not only self-applicable but also self-defying.
Sure, if you arbitrarily decide every comment is a meme.
It's amazing how everything is applicable to everything if you freely redefine the terms used.
edit: Sorry, that was a bit snarky. I think there's reasons why this applies to quick, punchy memes but not to longform comments: memes are antithetical to nuance.
Perhaps that hints at the problem of intentionally developing a meme stereotype, and then using it as a stick to beat people with. The bar for having that stereotype becomes ever lower, and thus the set ever bigger. People then self-censor perfectly acceptable behaviour to avoid being part of the set.
Karen is a _white_ woman who uses their entitlement to attack people in services.
I like how you just white washed the problem of racism with misoginy here.
That whole group of Karens is probably a product of white male misoginy towards white women so these women found of way of coming back at it by directing their anger towards even less priveleged groups.
