35 Times ‘Karens’ Acted So Entitled, The Internet Had To Call Them Out For It In This Online Group

The ‘Eff You Karen’ subreddit, founded in late 2017, is now homing in on the 1.2-million-member mark. Some of the subreddit’s rules include avoiding political topics, avoiding witch hunts, and censoring social media identities in order to protect the people being poked fun at.

They might be in the wrong and be way too entitled, but there are very few people who actually deserve being spammed by a bunch of angry internet users. Everyone makes mistakes and we need to leave enough room for people to grow and become better. Though, of course, that’s not an excuse for acting like a horrible, entitled person in the first place.

In a previous interview, I spoke about Karen memes and the context surrounding them with Matt Schimkowitz, Know Your Meme’s Senior Editor. According to him, there’s lots of potential for the meme to be insensitive and even offensive to women, so care must be taken when using this type of humor. He put it very plainly that we should all meme with caution, whatever the meme might be.

“As [the meme] grows from a parody of a common social experience of someone demanding to speak to a manager to a statement about white privilege, the stakes over the meaning of the meme grow as well,” Matt told Bored Panda.

“I think that users of the meme should be cognizant that what they're meme-ing might not be their intent anymore. It's very possible that the meme could grow even farther to exhibit misogynistic tendencies, which are somewhat already present,” Matt warned those who use Karen memes to be aware of the context.

At the core of using memes for humor lies intent. Know Your Meme’s Senior Editor Matt pointed out that the Karen meme, something that’s used and enjoyed by many people, could eventually become connected to something that many would find offensive if people with sexist beliefs started using the term as a “catchall for all women.”

Though we can’t expect memes to be completely neutral. “Meme-ing can be nihilistic artform and rewards really ugly behavior in some cases. Sometimes, what starts as a fairly inoffensive meme can grow into something really hateful, like Pepe the Frog. I could see that happening to Karen—though, I'm not really sold one way or the other on the debate."

According to Matt, it’s hard to find the exact origin of the Karen meme. However, he personally believes that the most convincing origin story is a bit from Dane Cook's 2005 comedy special , "The Friend That Nobody Likes" where Karen is given this title. "This is one of the earliest examples that we have to using a specific name to stand in for a whole type of person, and it's a comedic trope that we've seen dozens of times over the last 15 years," Matt explained the possible origins of the meme to Bored Panda.