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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Entertaining Karens

    Who’s the most galling, captivating character on our screens this summer? It’s Karen — and she’s everywhere.

    By Hank Stuever
    TV critic
    June 30, 2020 at 9:25 p.m. GMT+7

    The most addictive TV show this summer isn’t even an official TV show, but how long before it becomes one? Several times a day, Instagram and Twitter feeds serve up another galling, sad and often intensely satisfying segment of a reality series we can just go ahead and call “Karens,” in which women (almost always white, almost always of a certain demeanor) make the mistake of policing, harassing or discriminating against their fellow humans in public.

    As soon as one Karen flames out across the Internet, another apparently more unhinged Karen rises in her place.

    One watches the video of the mask-defiant Karen in Dallas who angrily hurls the contents of her grocery cart to the floor, then, only hours later, one sees the terrifying video of a Karen and her husband (the male version of a Karen, sometimes known as a Kevin, has lately been termed a Ken) defiantly guarding their St. Louis manse from passersby marching in a protest Sunday. This barefooted Karen, wearing a black-and-white striped shirt and the regulation capri-length Karen pants, is waving a pistol; her husband, in his schlubby pink polo shirt, brandishes a semiautomatic rifle. (In fact, they are lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey, but in today's context there is no mistaking that they are Ken and Karen America.)

    It’s not the couple’s toughness that registers; it’s their abject fear. Maybe they, too, have seen how things usually end these days, as the Karens increasingly get exactly what they’ve long had coming: resistance, mockery and, in some cases, the loss of their jobs.

    It’s a sudden reverse of the scenes that viewers used to gobble up in the outdated and justifiably canceled “Cops” and “Live PD,” two popular reality shows that thrived by exalting the presumably noble dedication of law enforcement officers while exploiting a lack of sympathy for those who were most typically seen bearing the brunt of that enforcement.

    Now, with the cameras squarely and vigilantly in the hands of those who are sick of being hassled, the “Karens” show depressingly confirms some of our worst suspicions about people in general, wielding a similar power of stereotype. “Karens” triumphantly flips the “Cops” dynamic. The Karens of our world relied too long on the power of racism and intolerance, threatening to call the authorities on anyone who offended or unnerved them. Now Karen is the bad guy, getting the comeuppance she so richly deserves. (Whatcha gonna do, Karen? Whatcha gonna do when Instagram comes for you?)

    On May 25, the same day George Floyd stopped breathing under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, one of the all-time Kareniest Karens — a white 40-year-old dog owner named Amy Cooper — was recorded in New York’s Central Park verbally harassing Christian Cooper (no relation), a 57-year-old black birdwatcher, after he reminded her that her dog belonged on a leash. We all know how Amy Cooper’s tantrum (which included a hysterical call to the cops) turned out for her. We also know how it might have turned out if Christian Cooper hadn’t recorded the encounter.

    And so, amid a culturally fractious and largely failed attempt to quell a killer pandemic, paired with a stirring surge in support of civil rights and police reform, there’s a strange sort of solace that comes from watching these Karen and Ken videos spring up like summer dandelions across the regulation-green lawn of the fragile, white American psyche.

    You never know when Karen is going to show up — or, more important, when she’s going to snap. The videos are most remarkable for their similarities. Karen points at the camera, Karen gets hostile, Karen is triggered by the audacity that someone would talk back to her, tell her no, tell her to try minding her own business. When cornered — when at last she reckons with the idea that millions might soon be watching — Karen doesn’t back off, she doubles down. Out come the weird dance moves, racist slurs or anti-immigration diatribes. Go ahead, film me! How is it that Karens can so often be counted on to fly into these rages of entitlement?

    Karen is all but rendered powerless by “Karens Going Wild by Pavel,” an Instagram account with more than half a million followers and rising, which shares particularly egregious Karen videos of the moment, resulting in swift responses. Over the weekend, a Hampton Inn employee in North Carolina called the cops on a black family (registered guests of the hotel) who were using the pool. As of Monday night (a day after Karens Going Wild shared the mother’s video), the chain’s parent company, Hilton, apologized to the family and said the employee has been fired.

    Because that’s how it goes in 2020, right? It can be greatly entertaining but just as often unsettling — especially if you happened to be holding out any remaining shred of hope in the social fabric. If you’ve lost that hope, there is Karen to blame.

    She sometimes appears to suffer from mental illness or too much stress. Other times, it appears she’s just a mean drunk. There is some fretting about the way viewers comment on Karen’s appearance, a side concern about the cruel and sometimes sexist things people say. There is also the worry, now that firearms are part of the picture, that Karen videos have the potential to take a violent, gruesome turn.

    The awful beauty of the Karen and Ken videos — their rawness and immediacy — is that we as viewers haven’t yet processed how they truly make us feel. Only angry? Only vindicated? Aghast? Sick? It’s a show that is very much in progress.

    Yet Karen has been around forever. She’s hardly new to anyone who recognized her long ago, whether in historical fact or observant fiction: Karen at the neighborhood HOA meetings. Karen as the

    More than one clever Twitter user has posted a photo of Margaret Hamilton as the mean Miss Gulch in the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz,” by way of Karen comparison. Miss Gulch was the Wicked Witch’s Kansas analogue, — a total Karen move. Was it ever in doubt whom the audience was supposed to root against? And on a more existential level, does a Karen ever know she’s a Karen?

    This streaming supply of Karens is at its best and most brilliant when the person doing the filming just stands their ground, no matter how ugly the words get, and lets Karen reveal her true nature. Let her twist and gesticulate and scream her head off. After all, she’s melting, she’s melting.
    Majestically enthroned amid the vulgar herd

  2. #2
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    Karens are everywhere, here's one who called the cops on black people for using a swimming pool:

    White Hotel Employee Calls Cops On Black Guests Using The Pool, Gets Fired

    And here's a not at all rare sight of a Karen and a Ken in the wild, threatening BLM protesters with guns:

    Top 29 Reactions To The Gun-Wielding "Ken And Karen" Couple Threatening Protesters



    Dressed like that could they be anything other than preppy assholes though.

    And Ken's... There's a few of them here on TD I reckon.

  3. #3
    I'm in Jail

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  4. #4
    I'm in Jail

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  5. #5
    Thailand Expat
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    You must be loving the controversy and chaos eh ChicHo? You buddy Donald is in a really good place right now.

    Making all the right moves with all the right people.

  6. #6
    I'm in Jail

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    Vagina, do you really think I give a fuk about you're country.

  7. #7
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Entertaining Karens-eb1ctetwaaqgx2x-jpg

  8. #8
    Thailand Expat
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chico View Post
    you're country
    I am country what? Moron..

  9. #9
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    sigh...

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chico View Post
    Vagina, do you really think I give a fuk about you're country.

    I usually don't criticize grammar, BUT...

    your - possessive as in your country.

    you're - you are as in: You are not capable of writing a single sentence without making a grammatical error.


  11. #11
    In Uranus
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    Quote Originally Posted by qwerty View Post
    I usually don't criticize grammar, BUT...

  12. #12
    fcuked off SKkin's Avatar
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  13. #13
    Thailand Expat YourDaddy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tomcat View Post
    Who’s the most galling, captivating character on our screens this summer? It’s Karen — and she’s everywhere.
    New York Post?

    Shame on you.

  14. #14
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    There sure are a lot of Karens in the US !!

  15. #15
    A Cockless Wonder
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    OP was a tad long and I could not be arse-holed wading through it. So what was the takeaway? What do Karen's do?

    Helens agree


  16. #16
    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chico View Post
    Some trio

    And Tucker Carlson is a swine

  17. #17
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Aren’t Karens supposed to be Millennials? Those two with the guns look a tad older. They should have known better.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chico View Post
    Vagina, do you really think I give a fuk about you're country.
    Yet you're constantly posting about the US, NZ, Australia etc... You're not only severely uneducated but also an utter moron

  19. #19
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit
    Aren’t Karens supposed to be Millennials?
    It's more about an overriding sense of entitlement and abuse of privilege -- both of which transcend age-groups.

  20. #20
    I'm in Jail

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    QED...................

  21. #21
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    You are using that incorrectly (and being a whiny hypocrite again).

  22. #22
    RIP
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    I've known two Karen's in my life and they were both twats.

  23. #23
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chittychangchang View Post
    I've known two Karen's in my life and they were both twats.
    ...what behavior did your Karens indulge in?...include pics please...

  24. #24
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    I've heard "Karens" make good "fag hags"

  25. #25
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    Entertaining Karens-

    The Karen New Year (ကညီနံၣ်ထီၣ်သီ) is one of the major holidays that the Karen people celebrate.[61] The date of Karen New Year day varies because the Karen people use the lunar calendar. The new year day usually fall on December–January.

    Karen Wrist Tying(ကညီလါခူးကံၢ်စု) is an important Karen holiday. This holiday is observed annually in August.





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