If you work in the service or retail industries, you may have encountered a customer who is more difficult than the others, where it seems like it is their personal mission to make your day miserable, or to undermine you and make you feel small. It is common to hear stories of such people, like one woman in a movie theatre in Melbourne, who reduced a young casual employee to tears because she couldn’t get a free popcorn refill. One would struggle to think about what would drive a person to behave like that, who can stand there and feel justified in making a teenage girl cry because there’s no free refills on popcorn? But also, what does one call such a person?
That is where the “Karen” meme comes from.
To call someone a “Karen,” is to point out that blatant abuse of privilege of a customer against an employee. It is also a commentary of a business system that prioritises customer satisfaction over the dignity of an employee.
“Karen” is an innocent feminine name, however; it has recently become synonymous with the stereotype of abusive customers in a retail setting. Not everyone named Karen is a banshee who undermines employees, and most people who are actually named Karen understand this. But across social media there are some people who seem to have it confused, and want to link calling someone a “Karen” to being sexist and anti-feminist. There are even posts on Twitter that are trying to link calling someone “Karen” to being as bad calling someone the n-word. That's way too far.
I want to make it clear, calling an abusive customer a “Karen” is not sexist or anti-feminist. While the male equivalent is still undecided on the internet; men can be “Karens” too. Besides, even if it isn’t used the right way, it is still a harmless meme. Those who want to treat the meme like it’s something deeper than it is are only giving power to those who want to use it as a derogatory term. The strongest way to deter people like that is to not pay attention to them.
Modern feminism has done amazing things, however, there is a line wherein calling out abusive behaviour from a woman is not being anti-feminist or sexist. Ironically, it would be a “Karen” behaviour to take thunder from the feminist movement and cry “sexist” to cover up abuse of privilege.
Image: Getty Images
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