KARENS
Robert Spencer 
I fell down a KAREN/KEVIN rabbit hole on youtube and I have more questions than answers. It was really weird, I have never seen bizarro shit like that in my life. People were screaming over any little thing and I mean seriously going batshit.
My conclusions: For the most part Karens and Kevins are grossly overweight and poorly dressed. Also, a large percentage of them are found freaking out at Macdonald's or other fast food places and they are frequently going mental at people at Walmart. Southwest airlines seems to be popular with these folks too, I have no idea why.
So why are they like this? Is it the fat, the fast food, the shitty shopping or the terrible airline?
| by Anonymous | reply 54 | March 9, 2023 2:03 PM |
It's McDonalds, not Macdonalds.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | September 30, 2022 2:24 AM |
I dont think this is a new phenomenon—rather, we see it more bc of the internet.
When I waited tables/worked retail 20 years ago I dealt with my fair share of Karens/Kens.
When I worked at the Gap, a woman was returning a shirt (new with tags) and as I was processing the return she grabbed the shirt and cleaned her glasses with it.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | September 30, 2022 2:24 AM |
[quote]I dont think this is a new phenomenon—rather, we see it more bc of the internet
I agree with this. Video sites and social media brought a bit more attention to Karens and Kevins. There are subreddits on reddit that focus on these issues Tales from the Call Center, Tales From Retail, etc.
I worked in retail and in the restaurant industry during college from 2004 to 2007. The Karens/Kens varied from poorly dressed overweight people to fit/thin people who were usually well dressed, but acted like they had sticks up their asses.
I also did office temp work at medical practice offices and there were plenty of Karens and Kens who verbally abused office staff, medical assistants, nurses, and others over issues like what was covered by insurance, outsourced lab work/result time frames, and other things that nurses, MAs, and office staff couldn't control or had no hand in. Physicians/owners of practices usually terminated those patients. Also, spouses can be total Karen/Ken assholes with healthcare workers, they often don't understand HIPAA and HIPAA authorizations and would get pissy whenever office staff had to call patients to go over billing or scheduling.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | September 30, 2022 3:36 AM |
I believe the Karen behavior initially is largely about getting attention then the affirmation attention loop escalates maybe a pattern from childhood that doesn’t get outgrown.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | September 30, 2022 4:09 AM |
TWO different questions in the same poll?!?!?!
I want to speak to your manager, OP!
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | September 30, 2022 5:21 AM |
Oh, I'm so sorry R5, my manager is only in my computer on the second Tuesday of every week. You can contact her then, please get all the information from our website.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | October 3, 2022 11:50 PM |
In your face “say the quiet part out loud” anti-etiquette trends plus obsequious customer service protocols. Take it away, Ryan.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 7 | October 4, 2022 12:09 AM |
The behavior is not new. The phenomenon is.
"From 1995 to 2020, an average of 182 investigations were initiated per year. In 2021, the FAA initiated 1,081 investigations -- a 494% increase over the historic average of investigations.13-Jan-2022".
There is something seriously wrong with this country.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | October 4, 2022 1:20 AM |
Has the quality of life changed? Is America and Americans still fun?
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | October 4, 2022 1:27 AM |
It's always been this way. America is a very angry and hair trigger society. What the media gets wrong is the myth that these are all middle aged white women. This behavior is found among customers of both genders and all colors.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | October 4, 2022 1:32 AM |
R11 Not true or you must be very young. It’s never been this bad.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | October 4, 2022 1:44 AM |
R12 I worked full time customer and food service about 10-15 years ago in a major metropolitan area ( blue state). I'm sad to say not particularly young. I remember witnessing major meltdowns even then. One that stands out is a 50-60 ish guy red faced, hyper ventilating, and screaming because the cooks put his coleslaw on the side of his sandwich rather than inside like he requested. I could tell more stories but I won't turn this into a blog.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | October 4, 2022 1:50 AM |
[quote]It's always been this way. America is a very angry and hair trigger society. What the media gets wrong is the myth that these are all middle aged white women. This behavior is found among customers of both genders and all colors.
This is pretty true from my experience. Another thing that media doesn't focus on is that Karen behavior can be common with elderly people too. I worked a customer service job several years ago where I often dealt with military veterans and the ones who had the worst Karen and Kevin attitudes were people 65 and older. A lot of elderly people seem to have the attitude that their age gives them free pass.
I have a cousin who is in her 20s and worked in customer service and retail while in college and she said the worst people she encountered active duty military or veterans and their spouses. They always wanted discounts and would flip off the business/company didn't have a veterans or active duty discount in their policies.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | October 4, 2022 2:01 AM |
Joe, big love and hugs to you and Mark.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | October 4, 2022 3:17 AM |
People, do not confuse anecdotal experience with a social phenomenon.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | October 4, 2022 7:36 AM |
Can Sherly Lee Ralph be included in the poll as a Karen?
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | November 4, 2022 1:23 AM |
You've just described... Fuck.. never mind.🤷
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | November 4, 2022 1:32 AM |
I guess we’re no longer discussing the indigenous group from Burma?
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | November 4, 2022 1:34 AM |
R8 "I wonder what's causing that..." --future airline CEO, proposing a plan to charge money for using the airplane bathroom
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | November 4, 2022 2:36 AM |
I've dealt with these people and they're always paper tigers. They act like assholes because they think they can get away with it but the second you give them some pushback they are gobsmacked. Bullies are cowards.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | November 4, 2022 12:37 PM |
The real answer is that "Karen" is a propaganda tool created by the CCP.
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | November 4, 2022 12:49 PM |
Americans live in one of the richest countries in the world, with a comfortable quality of life most people in the world would envy, yet the people here are so angry. It’s a toxic society, and we’re encouraged to treat each other like shit. I don’t think the US is “fun” anymore, not since the turn of this century especially.
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | November 4, 2022 1:01 PM |
R23 I agree, American society is quite toxic. Entitlement plays a huge part in that.
| by Anonymous | reply 24 | March 6, 2023 4:27 PM |
In my experience, most "Karens/Kevins" were not the stereotypes in the OP's post, but much more so upper middle class to affluent, very well dressed, educated, etc. types. Well off and deeply entitled. You'd be surprised...
| by Anonymous | reply 25 | March 6, 2023 4:40 PM |
Plenty of Black women, especially obese, behave like this. The internet is filled with videos of them brawling in chicken shops because chicken nuggets are off the menu. What's their name? LaShonda? Laquiche Lorraine?
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | March 6, 2023 4:53 PM |
^ When I worked in retail 20 years ago, I worked in a store that was on the cusp of a bougie neighborhood but near a poverty stricken area as well. The absolute worst were the middle and upper middle class white women. Of course not all but more hosebeasts per capita than the minority customers. Definitely encountered a few minority Karens in my day but nowhere near the level of nastiness displayed by white suburban Karens.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | March 6, 2023 4:55 PM |
I think it started getting bad during the financial crash, got worse under Trump, and blew up massively with the covid lockdown.
My own anecdata comes from working in customer service in the 80s yes I'm old! I had no fear of the public, even when I fucked up in my job (messed up someone's order) and I only remember a few unpleasant episodes where a customer went batshit on someone. But this was the era when people put clothes on to go out in public, schools were teaching reading and civilized behavior, and people probably had some hope for their future. I know I did.
| by Anonymous | reply 28 | March 6, 2023 5:39 PM |
^Granted, it was still a shitty time for women and minorities.
| by Anonymous | reply 29 | March 6, 2023 5:48 PM |
The whole Karen thing is a meme-driven trope created by Millennials to cover for their own incompetence and laziness and attitude problems. I know a couple Millennial business owners who will attest to this. They hate dealing with their own cohort on both sides of the counter.
| by Anonymous | reply 30 | March 6, 2023 6:32 PM |
I think upper middle class Karen types tend to be the worse because some of them have never faced hardships or know what it's like to work jobs in retail, customer service, food service etc.
I have a friend who immigrated to the US from Peru in the early 90s. His family wasn't dirt poor when they came in, but they had to be careful with money. One of his older siblings later married a Peruvian immigrant who came from wealthy background who was able to use family money to start an assisted living facilities for elderly people in residential homes. My friend has never liked his brother-in-law and has described him as a male Karen. His sister also turned into a Karen type. Most of people in my friend's family don't like to go to restaurants, stores, or other public places because most of the time brother-in-law or sister finds some little thing to bitch about. My friend has joke that his brother-in-law should have been born an American upper middle class woman.
| by Anonymous | reply 31 | March 6, 2023 7:16 PM |
I work a misogynistic dude who refers to every middle-aged woman he encounters as Karen, no matter their behavior. It’s his way of not calling them all bitches on the job.
| by Anonymous | reply 32 | March 6, 2023 7:43 PM |
It's a combination of BAD PARENTING, and the availability of phones with movie cameras and an internet to distribute it to millions.
| by Anonymous | reply 33 | March 6, 2023 8:08 PM |
R23 This. I work for an e-commerce website based out of Canada. I deal with customers all over the world, specifically in regards to order fulfilment and shipping.
The customers from the US are just awful if their order isn't there immediately.
We ship so much to the U.S. that we have a small team of dedicated reps with USPS. That's something we don't have with most of the other countries we ship to.
If Americans had to deal with Canada Post, Poste Italiane, La Poste, Deutsche Post or any other national postal service in the world, their heads would explode.
Sometimes I call the general USPS 1-800 number that the public uses and the reps are always very professional at USPS even when I'm not speaking to our dedicated business network reps. Americans are really, really spoiled with USPS and they don't even know it. They just complain about the post office all the time.
Ditto Brits with Royal Mail. Something about Americans and Brits is that they also don't understand the concept of calling USPS or Royal Mail, they reach out to the retailer right away when something happens to their shipment. I don't know why. If I'm getting something delivered with the post office and I notice something amiss with the tracking, I reach out to Canada Post directly. I know for a fact that contacting USPS and Royal Mail is easy as hell, I've done it and I live in a foreign country.
You don't see this behavior with the number of our Irish, French, Italian, German, Canadian. and Australian customers. It's weird. The Americans are, at least, a little more polite than the Brits (specifically the men). British men are easily some of the most entitled Karens around. They straight up tell you that you're an idiot if you don't capitulate to their every demand.
Brexit was a nightmare. Customs clearance into the UK drastically shot up in a small amount of time and no amount of explaining how international shipping works to these people did anything.
| by Anonymous | reply 34 | March 6, 2023 8:09 PM |
R31 in other words, we need a name for men who are entitled assholes. Brian is a nice generic Gen X name.
| by Anonymous | reply 35 | March 6, 2023 8:12 PM |
R34 yes I ordered from Britain to Switzerland for years. Now it is a nightmare and vary expensive, WHEN you can find a British company even willing to bother shipping.
| by Anonymous | reply 36 | March 6, 2023 8:14 PM |
My uncle (59) is a Karen. We all shun him now, because of his behavior and he has descended into QAnon madness, but had been acting out in public for a while before he went Q. We all dreaded going anywhere with him or running into him as he was always making a public asshole of himself. For a while, my parents would go back to places where he was known to have been abusive to staff or caused an uproar, to apologize. After he started into the QA/ULTRAMAGA stuff, they no longer did that and now none of us mix with him.
We still end up hearing how horrible he is, though. Doubt that will end well for him. One day he will scream at the wrong person, and.... 💁🏼♂️
| by Anonymous | reply 39 | March 6, 2023 8:27 PM |
Men who act like entitled pricks deserve their own name and category so they can take accountability.
| by Anonymous | reply 40 | March 6, 2023 8:31 PM |
A woman I knew in the mid 1990s who was a customer service manager for a credit card company. In addition to being verbally abused, she claimed she received a cut-up credit card in a bag of Vaseline with the invitation to shove it.
| by Anonymous | reply 41 | March 6, 2023 8:50 PM |
^*in the mid ‘90s was a ^
| by Anonymous | reply 42 | March 6, 2023 8:51 PM |
Our credit manager is Helen Waite.
If you want credit, go to Helen Waite.
| by Anonymous | reply 43 | March 6, 2023 9:06 PM |
[quote] Men who act like entitled pricks deserve their own name and category so they can take accountability.
I've heard and read of them being referred to as "Steves" or "Chads". I don't think it's taken on like the Karen name. When I worked at customer service call centers in the mid 2000s, most of the abusive asswipes I dealt with were men. When I worked as a restaurant service and host, the entitled asswipes were mostly women. Whenever I watch the "don't fuck with people who handle your food" scene in the movie Waiting it reminds me of the Karens from my restaurant days. It was mostly women who worked business or office jobs who whined for stupid shit. I have a friend from my restaurant days who has said that if she's goes to mom and pop type cafes or restaurants, the customers treat the servers pretty well. But, if she goes to chain restaurants she notices the asshole customers.
| by Anonymous | reply 44 | March 7, 2023 12:57 AM |
R39 My ex had a cousin like that. Sometimes relatives would apologize for her shit at restaurants or stores.
| by Anonymous | reply 45 | March 7, 2023 7:27 PM |
R41 A family friend worked in airline customer service at airports and he mentioned hate mail.
| by Anonymous | reply 46 | March 7, 2023 7:49 PM |
Maybe male Karens should be called Terry
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 47 | March 8, 2023 4:49 PM |
R13, coleslaw inside the sandwich is a Pittsburgh thing. There is a local chain of restaurants, Primanti Bros., which does this - coleslaw and fries inside the sandwich.
| by Anonymous | reply 48 | March 8, 2023 6:23 PM |
Check out the sub r/EntitledKarens if you really want to see them in action.
And no, calling someone a "karen' isn't some misogynistic subversive workaround to calling them a bitch. Some of these people are seriously entitled, typically racist and bigoted as shit, and look down on everyone else.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 49 | March 8, 2023 6:27 PM |
[quote]Macdonald's
What the fuck is wrong with you???!?
| by Anonymous | reply 50 | March 8, 2023 6:44 PM |
R48, fries on a sandwich is a Pittsburgh thing but cole slaw is not -- it's an everywhere thing. R13 was not claiming anyone was unfamiliar with the concept.
Get out of Pittsburgh once in a while.
| by Anonymous | reply 51 | March 8, 2023 6:46 PM |
I had to step in on a Karen incident once. It was between a Karen and the clerk at a small store in a mall. Their manager had gone to lunch (not a big deal to have 1 clerk on for 20-30 minutes). This woman was flipping her shit over a sign discrepancy on a clearance table (as marked vs at register discount iirc). I was behind a shelf and could see the clerks face, she had tears welling up, so I just had to step in. Karen thought she was the only shopper in the store and could just lay into this poor girl....oh no honey.
| by Anonymous | reply 52 | March 8, 2023 6:53 PM |
Some of these white bitches people be calling Karen’s are actually right. White women wont stand for subpar service. We all shouldn’t.
| by Anonymous | reply 53 | March 8, 2023 7:08 PM |
R53 Do you see the men they marry? They might not stand for subpar service, but they'll gladly kneel for it 🙄
| by Anonymous | reply 54 | March 9, 2023 2:03 PM |
