Meaning
What does Male Version of Karen mean?
Male Version of Karen, or simply Male Karen is a popular continuation of the Karen meme online, associating the behavior of certain men with that of a typical Karen.
Online, the topic had spawned countless discussions about what exactly the “Male Version of Karen” should be called, ever since the Karen meme caught on back in the mid-2010’s.
Several nominations have been proposed on the web, with the most popular being Ken, due to it sounding similar to Karen.
Since the meme’s upheaval in the summer of 2020, the “Male Version of Karen” has been the subject of articles, discussions and image macros online.
The stereotypical behavior of a Karen and the “Male Version of Karen” usually includes calling authorities to aid them, especially when there is an ethnic minority involved in the story.
Origin
What's the origin of Male Version of Karen?
Although the Karen meme has spawned speculation concerning the fitting name of the archetypical Male Karen, ever since the appearance of the original meme in 2016, the trope of “Male Version of Karen” started widely emerging during the summer of 2020, after a woman and a man called the police on Khoa Lam, for acting suspicious.
Not long after, in July, 2020, photos of a St. Louis couple went viral online, as they were holding guns to protect themselves from protesters.
The couple was quickly dubbed Karen and Ken, describing the man as the “male version of Karen”.
Despite this, the first Urban Dictionary entry mentioning “Male Karen” was submitted to the site on December 13th, 2019.
Spread & Usage
How did Male Version of Karen spread?
Soon after the publishing of the stories on numerous news sites, memes started surfacing about the “Male Version of Karen”.
Many of these image macros were aiming to find the iconic haircut of Ken, similar to the inverted bob haircut, associated with female Karens.
Other memes were photoshop edits of the aforementioned Ken, defending himself with an assault rifle in various contexts, such as a Grand Theft Auto: Vice City cover.
Since the 2020 rise of the meme, various discussions and jokes have been spreading online about the “Male Version of Karen”, especially on sites like Reddit, Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook.
The term has also received several Urban Dictionary entries since 2020.
External resources
- Fatherly.com – What Is the Male Version of a Karen?
- Audacy.com – Man Uses 70 Years Of Data To Find The Male Version Of ‘Karen’
- Insiderlyfe.com – What Is The Male Version of Karen? Important Social Issues That Needs To Be Addressed