This is an All Ears English podcast episode 1453.
Why natives are talking about Karen.
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What exactly does it mean when someone gets called a Karen in English?
Lately, this term has been popping up more and more, and you'll want to know what it means and how it ties in with the current Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.
Listen in for all the details today.
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Hey, Lindsay, what's going on?
Hey, Jessica, not bad.
How are you doing?
How are you feeling today?
How's everything going?
It's kind of crazy.
The air quality here in Portland is atrocious.
And it's hard to tell if it's fog or smoke.
But I know that we were the most polluted city in the world over the weekend.
So there's that.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's insane.
Yeah, I think the US is.
I mean, the whole world is being tested, but the US is really having a hard year.
Oh, man.
I'll tell you what.
And but you know, something to distract us from the difficult world are internet memes.
Yeah.
Yeah, so we can just hang out and watch internet memes all day, right?
I mean, that's what this series is about, guys is getting you up to date on some of the modern language right,
The modern phrasing, the modern terms that you can use to have a real interesting conversation with a native speaker.
Now right,
Not 10 years ago, not 25 years ago in a textbook, but today.
Exactly.
Guys, there is no textbook that's going to teach you this stuff, right?
I mean, think about these textbooks that were published before there were internet memes.
You know what I mean?
Our conversations are completely different than what they were in 1998 or even 2005.
Oh my gosh, it's so funny.
I find it so interesting when they play clips on the news of, for example, congresspeople or whoever leaders in the world.
I always listen to their intonation and I feel like it was so different, even back in the 70s and the 80s.
Yes. spoke, the rhythm of their sentences was even different back then.
It's so interesting.
It was.
Or like going back further when Americans still tried to sound kind of British.
You know what I mean?
To sound like cultured and stuff if they were movie actors.
Oh, my gosh.
Good stuff.
So it's not just words that change, right?
It's intonation.
It's a way of delivering what you're trying to say that changes.
Totally.
And a lot of podcasts in the past month have been talking about one meme in particular which Lindsay and I learned about just recently.
Three weeks ago.
Yeah, from podcasts because all these things we were listening to kept mentioning this Karen meme.
And I was like, what is this?
And you know what?
My nine-year-old son knew what it was.
And I was like, have you heard of the Karen meme?
And he's like, yeah, let me talk to your manager.
And I was like, how do you know that?
Oh, I love that.
I love that guys.
We're here in this series.
The last episode in this series was about trolling and internet trolls.
So go back and catch up on that one.
That was 1445.
And today we're diving into this new topic, the concept of a Karen.
Well, let's start by just defining it in modern, you know, pop culture terms.
What does it mean?
So A Karen is an entitled white woman about middle age like 40s, I would say like between the 30s and the 50s.
Yes.
With a particular blonde haircut that's kind of a bob on one side and like spiky in the back.
It's like this weird blonde haircut um, but it doesn't like the.
The haircut is part of the meme, for sure, but it has grown larger than that to describe any just middle-aged, very entitled white woman.
Um Yeah, for sure.
And it can expand out too, right?
It's not so now that we have this archetype, right?
It expands out to be used to kind of describe anyone who's kind of maybe not aware of their privilege.
First of all, right.
Right.
That's the first piece.
And kind of being semi-abusive in certain ways, especially when it comes to complaining.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So that's why this phrase, let me talk to your manager.
This specific phrase is part of the meme, guys.
I will post this on our Instagram so you can see what I'm talking about.
So follow us on Instagram, All Ears English.
But yeah.
So this idea of like if you're sitting in a restaurant and there's like one little thing wrong with this woman's food or she's like – her water isn't filled to the top, or whatever.
And then she'll just like complain because again, it's this idea of entitlement, right?
Like I am so amazing.
I deserve the best of everything all the time.
You need to pay attention to me, me, me.
Exactly.
And just an example of how it expands out beyond just the woman.
Right.
So over the weekend we were in Breckenridge and we went to a cookie shop and they were talking about how a boy had come in just before us and there were no chocolate.
There were no M&M cookies.
This is a great cookie shop.
They have all these different kinds of cookies and there were no M&M cookies.
And he came back after realizing there were none and kind of complained.
And I'm not sure if he asked to talk.
And so they made that comment or someone made the comment as they were telling us the story.
Was he being a Karen?
This little boy was being a Karen.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We started a book club with another mom and her son.
So it's about identifying the privileges you do have, thinking about why you are so lucky and fortunate.
It's about self-identity, social identity, gender identity, but it's made for kids.
And so it's guys like we need to have these conversations with our children.
Right.
I mean, these are not things that were even in our conversations or awareness when we were kids.
Right.
Our culture has moved forward so much and so much in the last year, right with the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have been going on this spring.
I feel like we've already lurched forward, you know, 10 steps.
But we need to kind of the question is now as the new cycles move through, right, what happens now?
Like, what do we do and how do we keep that awareness up?
What was that event though Jessica, that's so important to mention here?
That happened in Central Park.
That kind of reignited, I guess, this whole idea, the Karen idea.
Hey guys, today we're talking about a topic that is a common conversation topic among native English speakers.
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Yeah, so apparently this idea of the Karen, this internet meme, has existed since 2014.
We can give you guys some details about that after.
But the reason why it became so pervasive on social media and the podcasts that we listen to is directly connected to this woman, Amy Cooper.
So she was in Central Park in New York City and her dog was off leash.
And let me tell you, I have a big problem with people that let their dogs off leash when they shouldn't.
But there was an African-American man who was birdwatching and asked her to put the dog on a leash, which that's the law.
Like she should have done that.
And she called the police on him.
Yeah.
And she did this at a time when, you know, we were all in this mindset.
We're all thinking about this issue really strongly.
It was very salient in our culture.
And she ended up losing her job.
Really?
I think so.
I'm pretty sure, yeah, she ended up losing her job.
Or, yeah, I'm pretty sure she did.
It really went viral, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
And so...
Yeah, definitely.
This story was all over the place, guys.
And again, that's what really sparked the explosion of the Karen in our society.
And guys, you will hear natives talk about this and refer to other people as being a Karen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And and did did the African-American man get arrested?
I believe he was arrested at first because the police believed the white lady.
Right.
Oh, geez.
I don't know.
We're going to have to leave a link to the news article on this guys, in our blog post for this particular episode.
I don't know all the details, but you can read up on it.
But possibly, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised.
So yeah, do you do you come across quote unquote Karens very often?
Or do you know any Karens?
Man, I feel like I don't go out of the house anymore these days.
I know, right?
With the pandemic and everything.
But yeah, they are out there for sure, for sure.
And I think you know it's really interesting.
You know the use of a name right to kind of typify something and flipping it on its side right.
Like in the past, different marginalized communities have been called names unfairly.
And now we're flipping it in the other way.
And so people can kind of get a taste of what that feels like, which I think is good in some ways that we can get a taste of what that feels like.
You know, we all have to go out of our comfort zones, right?
How are you going to get out of that entitled, you know, sort of attitude?
I know a friend of mine.
She traveled to Japan with her parents and her parents have.
They live in a small town.
They're white people.
They have money.
They haven't really been uncomfortable.
They're around people that are the same as them.
But then they were traveling to smaller villages in Japan, and they were the only ones that looked like them.
They had a difficult time getting what they wanted because they didn't speak the local language.
And it really was like this jolt for them to sort of wake up and think like okay, like how is life outside my small circle?
For sure.
For sure.
I mean, I think a big salient issue right now and I'm glad, I'm so glad that this is in the conversation the national like psyche of our country right now is Check your privilege right.
This common concept of you know.
Last year I was on a road trip with a friend and we thought to ourselves we went through all the ways in which we're privileged right.
And the ways in which we're not.
And then we thought to ourselves, like our brothers and our sisters, who like thinking about what they would say, to answer that question if they may not be used to this kind of conversation.
Yeah.
That is a good exercise.
Oh, I love that.
I might make that my journal exercise for this evening.
That's a good exercise.
Exactly.
So someone who is like a white, straight male, who has kids, owns a home, is upper middle class and maybe is, for example, an engineer that person?
May never, may not even be aware of the level of privilege that they have.
Lindsay, wait, I think you just described your brother.
I might be describing my brother.
Oh, that's so funny.
He doesn't listen to the show, luckily.
It's just really interesting.
I find it even more interesting than the names.
It's about the deeper issue, right?
Like, what is your privilege?
And what are the ways in which you've benefited from that privilege throughout your entire life without realizing it?
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh, so much.
I reflect on that quite a bit, actually.
I'm so fortunate.
I got to go to university.
I grew up in a safe home.
So fortunate, so lucky.
And the next step from there is how can you pay that forward?
Right.
So that's what I really like about the this book is anti-racist.
That book that I mentioned earlier is.
It's not just about like just keep stay inside and make space journal entries or whatever.
There are actions that you can take throughout this book, like recommended things you can do.
It could be volunteering on like a larger scale.
It could be a smaller action of just like...
Smile at more people when you see that.
Don't start a conversation with a stranger today.
So many small things we could do in our daily lives to just get outside our circles.
Oh, that's a good point.
I think people may think that they have to do huge things like organize an entire movement, or we don't have to do those things right?
It can just be the little gestures that make such a big deal.
Yeah, it's true.
It's true.
So just getting back to this Karen thing real fast guys, because we do want to give you the context of it, the history of it.
So we've given you the very current modern history of why we're talking about this right now.
But this actually became a meme in 2014.
So it's been around for a while and it just recently exploded.
Yeah.
But from my small amount of research on this guys, because I did want to find out where this came from.
The quintessential example of this is a woman named Kate Gosselin.
She was on a reality show in, like, the mid-2000s called...
I know I never watched it, but I knew about it.
It was called John and Kate plus eight.
It was just this, like you know, your typical, like upper middle class white people from middle America who have eight kids, and they were on TV.
But apparently she was kind of bonkers.
And after the show ended, they got divorced and she went even more bonkers.
But she sort of typified that like entitled spirit.
Was there a specific event that happened where she got labeled that?
Or was it just her general like way of being in the world, kind of unaware of privilege and that kind of thing?
Yeah, I don't know.
I never watched the show.
But yeah, thank goodness.
Yeah, I'm not gonna waste my time on that.
I'm gonna do a journal entry instead.
No, but like, it's just her general way of being like, and she had that haircut, right?
That like weird, like suburban blot with like lots of blonde highlights and this like asymmetrical thing.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know it, I think I know it, I think I know, I think I've seen it.
The haircut, it's so weird.
This is so interesting.
You know, I'd really interested to know for our listeners in their countries, around different social issues social justice are there certain names right, that people are labeled as to typify a certain way of being, especially in a way that's just not okay at this moment in time, right?
Yes, it would be cool if our listeners could come back to the blog and let us know.
Yes guys, please come back to the blog.
What number is this?
What number episode is this?
Okay, good question.
This is going to be number 1453.
Sweet.
All right.
So come back to All Ears English, guys. allearsenglish.com.
This is episode 1453.
Leave us a comment because this is obviously very American culture specific we're talking about.
But again, this is the type of background and vocabulary you guys need to understand well what we're talking about on podcasts, on late night shows, whatever you're listening to.
So guys, definitely tell us what ideas like this exist in your culture?
Are people turning against, right?
Like the majority now in some way.
Yeah, I would love to hear you guys explain what's happening where you are.
Yeah.
And just ask us any follow-up questions, right?
If there is a follow-up question from today's episode, let us know that question and we can do a follow-up episode.
Oh, yeah.
Because we really went into the center of it here, Jessica.
This is good stuff, right?
This is what natives are talking about right now every day.
So if there's something that just wasn't clear guys, or that you miss, or you need more context or more vocab, let us know.
I'm excited to be talking about these real issues, Jessica.
Oh, my gosh.
I would love to do a whole episode answering listener questions about this internet meme series.
So please, guys, also ask us questions.
Yeah, a lot of good stuff.
All right, Jessica, thanks for tackling this.
This is a good one today.
Very interesting.
Yes, we all learned from this.
All right.
I'll talk to you soon.
Have a good one.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
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