Click for Leroy: Why he gotta be Jerome? Why can't he be Tommy, or Philbert, or somethin'?
What is your vote and what are your thoughts?
Karen is the latest iteration of a long cultural trend. As near as I can tell, Karen is the Soccer Mom of Beckys.
The word is harmful like the sting of a snowball fight; it can be used as a weapon, but comparing "Karen" to "nigger" is indicative of an underlying problem.
I once asked what the masculine equivalent of "bitch" was. Nobody was anxious to stand up and say, "dick", and I think the reason why is obvious. What's the word? "Snowflake"? We used to call such a man, "pussy". Or, "bitch". The standing bro code, such as it was, had never held being a dick in the same class as being a pussy or bitch, and being a cunt was certainly worse than being a dick. I mean, sure, obviously, nobody was going to say, dick.
And why not, when we have the word, "jerk"?
Wait, what?
I know, I know. But, hey, y'know, we were just being elitists if we didn't take that seriously. (Really, it's a conservative thing.)
That was years ago. "Karen"?
It's not a nice word, but neither is, "asshole".
"Karen" is a stupid insult, but it fits the market trend. And that's one of the curious questions about it. There is a reasonable case that people shouldn't bother with Karen or Becky or Soccer Moms, and all that, because they are wickedly-intended terms. But it's also an example of the question about how much attention we should give the hurt feelings of empowerment majorities. To wit, anyone who has said women need to lighten up about sexual harassment should probably not complain about the fact of people saying, "Karen". Anyone who has complained about black people having mean words, like "honky", or, "cracker", for white people, should probably not complain about anyone saying, "Karen", especially if you never stood up for Jake.
Before the cartoon, being a "Dilbert" was an unkind circumstance. While the name has history back to the fifth century, CE, it was among my cohort the word some people said instead of dilwad or dilhole, which, for my cohort, were derived from dill pickles as phallic insults among boys.
As an insult, "Karen", is behaviorally oriented, and questions of race wouldn't have anything to do with it if Karen, as such, leaves it out.
One thing, though, about the idea of there being no such thing as
mostly harmless, is the circumstances under which such notions are applicable. And if a slur is a slur, who defines what a slur is? Some people think it's a slur to call someone racist. Trust me, "Karen", will be pissed off no matter what you call her, other than, "absolutely right, ma'am, and we're so sorry to be so unworthy!"
But, sure, if it helps some, out there, feel better to fret over the Karen stereotype, let's neuter it and call her,
asshole, instead. Too general? How about,
shitmouth? To much diversity in shitmouthing? I know, let's go with,
fucktard. Honestly, though? Karen doesn't deserve either of those.
Shitmouth and
fucktard are far too fine of words to waste on the proverbial Karen. She is known by many names, is part of something larger, and no, I don't care what her husband's name is, but we'll certainly bury them next to Biff and Buffy when time and tide should call. Perhaps we should just mark the stone with the family name,
Sin.
Meanwhile, I can't believe Williams Street is after Debbie, again. What a waste.
I should also note, of
rednecks: Redneck was as redneck will, and was sort of just a word. I mean, for as much as people might have said, "city slickers", once upon a time, what do we do about "hillbilly", or, "redneck"?
It was, for in my time, Jeff Foxworthy who brought rednecks to the popular fore. It was great, even according to the rednecks. It was their day in the sun. They felt loved and appreciated.
But outside that, well, right. There is an old joke about American auto racing:
Go fast, turn left. I have, in my lifetime, heard this joke compared to Jim Crow and the suppression of the Civil Rights movement. Meanwhile, do you know why we won the Gay Fray? Really, we cannot discount that white men would be counted among the winners. Once upon a time, "redneck" had even less punch than, "city slicker". But rednecks made themselves a reputation; the term is, in its twenty-first century usage, behaviorally oriented. Complaining that redneck is the new nigger never worked, which in part was why we saw some back and forth a few years back about the word, "thug", which, while it seems behaviorally oriented, was a slur in its history, a catch-all excuse for lynching a black man. As black people are human beings, they are imperfect; in such a time and circumstance, all anyone needed was an excuse. And if that standard made the rest of society thugs, too, well, at least they weren't black.
"Karen", is not a useful trope. However, in the history of name-calling, the backlash I've been seeing in socmed against the Karen stereotype would seem bizarrely dubious except for fulfilling type, which is itself a strange thing to say. We have a joke over in my corner of socmed, and it largely remains tacit, but someone went and said it a few months back, because it was impossible to not notice that the tough guys looking to trigger sjws, and such, were incredible snowflakes, kind of how mras, mgtows, and incels keep turning out to be such ... well ...
(... [sigh] ...)
... such pussies.
And, honestly, I don't even know how to compare the two words. What makes,
pussy, an insult is a neurotic mess that only a man can make, and yet the people who make the biggest example of why it is unwise to feed misogyny with such words are the biggest pussies of them all. Nigger? History itself ought to be sufficient to make the point of why it is such a terrible word.
But, "Karen"?
Part of why I find this such a mindfuck is that I can think back to objections, in the Eighties and Nineties, against political correctness, and there is a nearly consistent political arc 'twixt that and the objection to "Karen".
But we're also in a social media generation, so these things come 'round through strange vectors, sometimes. My twitfeed, for instance, depicts—in tweets from the objectors—the objection to the Karen stereotype in a context best described as,
they still don't get it.
Nonetheless, it's not a useful stereotype, and our societal discourse suffers for such superficial, trend-driven contrapopulism.
Maybe I should just call Karen a dick. Doesn't really solve the problem, does it?
If we start at a far extreme, no negativity at all, and start working back toward the reality of this or that inquiry, two questions emerge:
What is the actual reality of the inquiry? and,
Why now?
I should note this:
I don't want to bias the input by laying down my own definition.
Without that information, it is hard to answer your question—
Is there a threshold where acceptable becomes unacceptable? Is that threshold greater than zero? I'm trying to account for that in the poll.
—because words like
threshold and
acceptable remain utterly relative to the beholder, and thus the answers might well have nothing to do with what you're asking.
Traditionally, though, thresholds of acceptability have to do with assertions of harm per the aesthetics of whoever is in charge. As individual matters, as long as it's utterly internal, it's none of my, or anybody else's, business; the practical question inherently involves other people. I can recall the "Thought Police" complaint against political correctness; they never did quite understand the difference between internalized thought and outwardly-directed action.
Colloquially, it's all fun and games until the empowerment majority is offended. The threshold, as such, is that the people who are supposed to lighten up and stop complaining so much lighten up enough to presume to take part in the custom. Watch white people complain about cracker. Compare men talking about the harmless fun of telling a co-worker she should be on a stripper pole, or asking her what underwear she's wearing, to the guys whining about mean girls in bathrooms, or women harassing them in bars. It's not just the contrast, but the expectation that they should hop the line. Justice comes when justice comes; they can get in line with the rest.
Think of it this way: It's not for general political correctness that I don't do the joke about stuffing Karen into the wood chipper, but that the Karen crowd will forget she's a stereotype they're complaining about and think they're being threatened.
