I am so glad I know this term. My own natural hair color is somewhere between red and blonde. I remember last year telling my friend how I don’t want to be blonde. She looked confused, then I said. “It’s okay to blonde, I just don’t want to be one of those blonde women who are really annoying and talk to other people in condescending tones and cry when you disagree with them and are always right and have their weird way where they act like they are better than you and are somehow in positions of power they aren’t really qualified to be in.” Now I can just say “Karen.”

Also, as a white lady, it’s kinda of nice to have a term to use to call me out on. Let’s be honest, I’m not perfect, I live in a racists society and despite my honest efforts, I’m sure I’ve internalized racism as well. I like the idea of someone being able to point my attention to my own racism by saying things like “You’re being a bit Karen right now…” “That statements sounds very Karen…” Or maybe just follow up with, “Okay, KAREN, we’ll stop talking because you’re crying now.” I think the best way to lesson my Karenness, is to be open to such statements even if my Karen ego, wants to cry when her privileged has been called out. As a privileged white woman, I think almost every white woman will have the opportunity in society to act like a Karen at some point. The sooner we have a name for it, admit it’s a real phenomena, and call it out, the better. One of the great tool of denial, is not having a word for something or someone that is quite real. Denial is of course how we white people like to respond to accusations of racism because we don’t want to lose our privileged or admit we are benefiting from such an ugly system. I thought my success in life came from