The Karen label has become a meme online over recent years, frequently used to characterize entitled behavior from middle-aged white women sporting pixie cuts, throwing tantrums in public places and exuding white privilege.
Over recent months, a new type of Karen has surfaced. This Karen doesn’t wear masks in stores and believes coronavirus to be overrated; furthermore she doesn’t comply with quarantine policies.
Influencers
Influencers can be defined as people who possess purported expert-level knowledge or social influence in one niche. Influencers can make money from their content by partnering with brands that they promote – either through paid product placements or endorsing products and services on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram.
An influential person can be used for various types of campaigns and can make an enormous difference to their audience. Influencer marketing has become increasingly popular over time and can provide businesses with an incredible way to expand their brand awareness and increase reach.
Influencers can often be classified by their follower count or type of content produced, making this an efficient way of finding an influencer to partner with.
However, it’s equally essential to understand the differences among influencer types. Mega-influencers tend to be celebrities with large followings who may or may not specialize in any one niche area, while micro-influencers specialize in niche areas and can have a dramatic effect on their follower base.
Bloggers who write popular blogs can also serve as influential voices who provide excellent brand exposure, since their topics are generally relevant and their following already established.
When choosing a blogger to work with, it is key that they specialize in your industry niche. This will ensure their content will speak directly to your target market and be relevant. There are tools available that can assist in selecting the appropriate blogger.
Find influencers that are solely interested in promoting themselves and their own opinions; these should be your target influencers. Even those without many followers can have a profound effect on how followers view your brand.
Influencers may even be willing to work for free with your brand; for instance, fashion bloggers could make great brand representatives as they have a wide following and extensive expertise within this sector.
Other influencers may not boast large followings but still can be influential due to being opinion leaders within their niche. It is these influential individuals that will speak on your products and services in an authoritative manner.
There have been certain influencers who are more provocative on social media, sparking up an uproar with their posts about entitled Kens and their behavior.
Entitled Male Karens
Ken has become an online trend in recent years. The word has been linked with numerous viral video incidents and is now commonly used as an acronym to refer to anyone found harassing or threatening service staff.
Though Ken may not make quite as many appearances on Reddit as Karen does, he has certainly made an impactful statement both online and in mainstream media. For example, Kens have frequently been referenced in stories regarding the coronavirus epidemic in 2020, as well as to describe an upper class couple from St Louis who defended their home with pistols drawn and stood guard outside it from protesters fearful they’d become targets for violence from protestors who threatened it with destruction.
There has been an upsurge in people criticizing entitled Ken behavior, calling attention to it as part of a wider movement that aims at uncovering racism, sexism and other forms of white privilege.
Watching this kind of behavior can be unnerving when it occurs publicly, yet we must all witness it so we can learn to react appropriately. Some incidents have been captured on camera and shared across social media; other have happened behind the scenes or offscreen – in many of these incidents, white individuals acting out of prejudice were called out for what they did, an important step toward ending racism and discrimination.
These examples of entitled Ken behavior have led many people to ask themselves the following question: “Is this really what Karen stands for?”. The confusion arises from behavior not explicitly labeled as such by other people – instead being called out as being described as being offensive, “slurs”, or trolling by others.
“Karen” has come to symbolize an irritable, arrogant woman who displays herself as entitled, haughty and privileged – either unconsciously or intentionally. Since 2017, “Karen” has gained in popularity as an umbrella term to refer to certain middle-class white women who exploit their social privilege to bully service industry workers.
No matter its intended meaning, behavior being labeled Karen is never in anyone’s best interests. Not only is it racist and sexist in its composition; moreover it represents an insult against service industry workers that these women target.
So that the public has an accurate portrayal of this issue, it is critical that people caught on film be identified appropriately – particularly if they use names such as Karen to mask racist and discriminatory actions.
These two individuals involved enraged white women who were not actually called Karens by restaurant or hotel managers; rather, a TikTok user recorded and posted footage from this incident online using the emojis typically associated with such behavior instead.
