> Please keep that sort of slur off HN. We don't need it here, and you don't need it to make your substantive points.
I think that may be an overly heated response.
Given that I have seen the term used as a pronoun applied to multiple genders, sex preferences, races, ethnicities, etc, I see the term as speaking to behaviors, rather than being a pejorative unique to a group. Here are good examples of it being applied across multiple ethnicities and genders [1] & [2] . There is even a transgender karen [3] .
Normally it is applied to people acting improperly, hall-monitor type of behaviors where it is not warranted. Someone maliciously reporting food growing in a backyard meets the definition.
Please don't make decisions based off Wikipedia [4] or dictionary.com [5] redefining a word to meet a specific agenda.
'internet forum aspiring to curious conversation' and 'youtube videos making fun of people's public meltdowns' have different standards and HN's are pretty well documented.
The word Karen reaching a tipping point in public awareness associated with the Gamestop incident I already pointed out. Many of us have seen it. We're aware of it, we know about it. And we know it is potent, otherwise it wouldn't be on the chopping block for redefinition. And forever, when I think of the word Karen, I think of that particular incident.
The word in that sense, has a great deal of similarity with a tiny little phrase, of a mere two words.
Mission Accomplished.
Whether tearful, premature, ironic, deceptive, tragic, or an example of great hubris, many of us living will forever associate those two words with George W. Bush on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the incalculable human suffering of an unpopular war. The friends we lost after that, and military adventurism run amok. The missing Weapons of Mass Destruction. So much is wrapped up in those two words. And forever, when I think of the phrase Mission Accomplished, I think of that particular speech.
Please do not tell me that HN is going to redefine a word for me, whether it is Karen, or Mission Accomplished, or some other phrase.
We don't need civilized pejoratives that are completely decent for dinner table talk to be conflated with uncivilized utterances not fit for the written or spoken word.
To say 'Au contraire' you have to provide some sort of meaningful counter-argument. You have 'comedy' youtube videos, oddly overwrought bombast ('dictator', 'agenda') and something about a completely different phrase which, unlike 'Karen', is not intended as an insult.
Directing tropey slurs at people is mostly not ok on HN and it's been moderated like that for ages.
The 'examples' obviously don't fit HN at all and beside you, nobody has mentioned racial or ethnic slurs nor made any argument the word should be treated here in some way that's different from the way it's widely interpreted. That seems more reach-y and redefin-y than simply asking people not to be trope-wielding jerks on HN.
I think that may be an overly heated response.
Given that I have seen the term used as a pronoun applied to multiple genders, sex preferences, races, ethnicities, etc, I see the term as speaking to behaviors, rather than being a pejorative unique to a group. Here are good examples of it being applied across multiple ethnicities and genders [1] & [2] . There is even a transgender karen [3] .
Normally it is applied to people acting improperly, hall-monitor type of behaviors where it is not warranted. Someone maliciously reporting food growing in a backyard meets the definition.
Please don't make decisions based off Wikipedia [4] or dictionary.com [5] redefining a word to meet a specific agenda.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gncDv1GNF4
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0msiW0mEVo
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5Wj9GqsmAI
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_(slang)
[5] https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/karen/