It’s only oppression Olympics when people are being oppressed. Oppression isn’t just really bad hurt feelings, it is systemic disadvantage.
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I don’t think @Melizmatic is attempting to invalidate any one’s pain over the use of their name as shorthand for a particularly odious type of white woman. She is just asking people put that pain in perspective.
The meme of the Karen has actually been very useful in showcasing this behavior and the shit BIPOC ppl have to deal with with respect to this type of person.
I get that people named Karen don’t care for the name to be used for this purpose. But it is, it has, and they will simply have to process their own pain or annoyance the same way other people with unfortunate names have for ages.
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Half a step from “why oh why am I not allowed to use the n-word? This is so unfair.”
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To me, it’s more like someone with a papercut on their thumb whining & crying, while they are sitting right next to someone who is bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds.
I simply don’t have the bandwidth to have any sympathy for that level of obtuse self-absorption.
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It’s just odd because I don’t remember any of this compassion for Debbies being downers, Janes being plain, Cathys being chatty, or even Berthas being big – which seems to have actually ruined that name. Let alone Toms and their peeping. So are you just missing an adjective? I’ve heard some people use the term wild Karen. That’s more than Marks and Dicks and Johns get. Would that small change be enough to fix everything for you? Why or why not?
Because I have to echo, somehow the discussion about the pain from this one label seems totally out of proportion to all the others. Almost as if the problem isn’t really using the name Karen for something, unless I guess Karens are just unusually sensitive for some reason, but a problem with the concept being labeled.
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I’m beginning to think it’s something else. What could it be?
It couldn’t just be a thinly veiled attempt to cast a group of privileged white people as an oppressed class, no that wouldn’t be silly wouldn’t it?
It must be the gendered angle. Looks around at the rest of society. Nope, not that.
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Exactly! Or Susans being lazy, Felicias being oh-so-rudely shown the door, etc. etc.
I am glad that @Christopher_Childs replied, though - thank you. Because I have asked over and over and not gotten any responses.
It does clarify that we seem to be talking about hurt feelings and not all those other forms of hurt others have mentioned. Like, losing one’s job or one’s life due to something they have no control over.
I hope this puts things in perspective for all the decent Karens and their families out there. Yes, that hurt can be real, but it can also be so far up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as to be invisible from the ground. Just something to consider.
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So here’s an analogy-this is like stepping on a Lego brick. You know it’s no big deal, you know it’s temporary, you know you will forget the pain in a few emphasized textminutes. Still, it really hurts. And then the other people in the room say, “your foot doesn’t really hurt because Johnny over here has a broken leg.” “As long as there are broken legs, your pain is stupid.” “You have no right to feel that pain because some people have broken legs.” Well, your foot still hurts.
So you’re trying to tell us some actual Karens get annoyed by the Karen meme?
Okay thanks, but that’s just telling us something already obvious.
If it’s that actual Karens actually get hurt by it, well, i think that’s their prblem, not that of those who use the meme. Such actual Karens are blowing a soon to pass fad all out of proportion.
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No it’s like saying that stepping on a Lego doesn’t excuse asking for weeks to recover as if you had actually broken something.
Or better that you shouldn’t put another person in a position to break a leg just to avoid stepping on a Lego, like knocking them down the stairs as you hop over that Lego.
You shouldn’t distract from the phenomenon of white women putting black people in real danger by making too big of a deal over the silly name applied to the phenomenon.
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Nobody ever died when a white woman said “That LEGO doesn’t belong here.”
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That analogy only works if your hypothetical Lego-injured Karen is also standing on Johnny’s leg, even if it’s accidental.
“Get off of Johnny’s leg, Karen! FFS.”
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Well, but, I’ve never been on the comments thread of a topic discussing legos and had other commenters demand I recognize the pain of stepping on a lego brick 
I haven’t seen husbands and partners of people who’ve stepped on lego bricks demand that we all stop having legos.
To put your analogy in a different light: Most parents of young kids have legos on the floor at some point, and step on them. Some of those parents abuse their children. When the abusers get called out for what they’re doing, you don’t get a chorus of all parents and relatives crying, “we’ve all stepped on lego blocks! It hurts!”
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Pretty sure that’s not what anyone here has said.
What they’ve said is “your pain is real, and it sucks, but insisting on complaining about how nobody cares about your pain while Johnny is over here bleeding out on the carpet, seems petty, selfish, and grossly disproportionate, and continuing to moan about your suffering in the context makes us actively not care about even the real pain you have suffered. Yes, I’m sure it hurts. Suck it up, you’ll be fine. Johnny won’t be unless we do something about his pain.”
Or am I missing something?
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I was given the name Kelly when I was born, and despite how often I was told it was a “girl’s name”, I never grew up to be that butt-hurt over it. 
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I feel the use of ‘Karen’ as a slur and reductive slogan that represents the dominant racist powers in the US, in particular cis female gendered as the target kinda gets my hackles up.
My trans partner chose the name Karen.
I get that for the greater good a shortcut term can have use but the use of ‘Karen’ is a rhetorical device of the school yard… discredits any serious insight as soon as the word/name is uttered.
Jim Crow, Adolph, Uncle Tom have a long and important history behind their currency but to watch my partners continual stress and upset at a meme that is her name makes me think about the level that political discussion has stooped.
I’m in no way am critisizing you @hecep personally, just fed up with the whole “Karen” thing… we all slip into the current vernacular… but to the wider community here, a simple idea spoken forcefully by Chuck D “Get your shit correct!” is a useful stance for protest against injustice.
Hint:
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