![]() ![]() “I was so aware of how my name works against me, I think it helped me to land my girlfriend,” adds Stark, who calls the memes “funny.” Becky Others see it as an opportunity: “The memes give me something to prove I’m not,” says Chad Stark, 30, of Brooklyn. “But my name has now become culturally synonymous with bland, Aryan-looking MAGA dudes.” “My parents named me after the African country,” writes one DC-based Chad on Twitter who resents the recent Chad re-brand. According to the internet etymology bible “Know Your Meme,” the term began in the ‘90s in Chicago to describe an affluent frat boy, but quickly exploded on online forums reddit and 4chan. These hyper-masculine sexually active dudes have chiseled jaws and bulging muscles. Per incel lingo, “Chads” are the guys who get laid. This one comes from the incel subculture, that’s often described as involuntary celibate and comprised of mostly men who lack sex and romance in their lives. Road rage is another feature of this viral type, on full display on the West Side Highway earlier this year when an angry mom, nicknamed “Kidz Bop Karen,” lashed out at a Lyft driver and his passenger. One recent example of a Karen? A woman brawling with the Red Lobster staff, reduced because of the pandemic, because she had to wait too long for her food on Mother’s Day.Ĭalling the cops, usually on black neighbors, is a calling card of a host of sub-Karens such as “ Pool Patrol Paula” and “ Dog Park Debbie,” who enlisted the help of the police when a man’s dog humped her own at the park. Some view it as a righteous motivator for the creation of Black Twitter - the world wide web knows a Karen when it sees one. While the origins of “Karen” are oft debated, some point to Dane Cook’s 2005 bit about the lamest gal in a group of friends being named Karen, others to the “Mean Girls” character played by Amanda Seyfried who is admonished for asking pal Cady (Lindsay Lohan) how she can be from Africa if she’s white. “Karen” has become social media shorthand meaning a middle-aged white woman - potentially with an asymmetric haircut a la 2009 Kate Gosselin - who makes a big fuss, and is not-so-blissfully ignorant. Here’s some of the names ruined by the internet, where they came from, and what the people named before the meme think about their online personas. Other names have become so entangled in pop culture that they’ve taken on a new meaning: Who can think of anyone but the Kardashians when they hear “Kim”?īut while the internet directory is fun, real-life Karens (or Beckys, Debbies, Chads and Kyles) bear the brunt of the jokes. Names such as Karen, Becky and Chad have been co-opted to call out social faux pas online, think: calling the police to shut down a kids’ lemonade stand because they don’t have a permit, or as slangy put-downs like, “Don’t be such a Becky.” ![]() Karen is the latest in a growing line of internet memes poking fun at real-life archetypes. Are you the type of gal who demands to speak to the manager when you feel you’ve been wronged? You just might be a “Karen.” ![]()
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