Why are Karens and Chads so generally angry?

[MrScorpio]

I’m thinking not necessarily because of anything specifically, such as over police brutality, Trump or politics, but it’s occurring in an overly general sense. I’m looking at these videos of mostly white people losing their freakin’ minds at the slightest inconvenience or that they’re in the presence of Black and Brown people within their proximity and I can only speculate that the core is mass cognitive dissonance in these rage encounters.

These people simply can’t process the fact that the real world doesn’t really comport with the whitewashed Fantasy America that they’ve been sold.

There’s a lot of irrational thinking that gets triggered any time these people realize that they’re sharing space with people that they’ve designated as “the other.”

I find it interesting when white people are triggered by blackness and their only choices are flight (denial that their words and actions have racist impact), or fight (outright racist outrage). They’re unable to act rationally because their thought processes are diverting to mental and emotional gridlock.

It doesn’t matter what’s right in front of them, namely another human being, it only matters that the default of whiteness has come within proximity of non-whiteness. Something that’s too difficult tolerate.

Stress is relative between people and groups who have developed coping mechanisms over generations and those who haven’t.

For me, those who go straight into fear, hatred and paranoia are people who have only lived a life of privilege and entitlement and are triggered because they’ve never never had to develop an existential imperative to interact with a significant amount of people outside of their own socially cloistered environment.

All I can say about that it sucks to be them.

[NanceGreggs]

1. This is a thought-provoking ...

... and beautifully-written piece.

Thank you.

[iemitsu]

2. And it sucks to be around them.

[JI7]

3. They can't deal with the thought of minorites doing better than them economically . While they have

a history of attacking minorities based on racist things like welfare queens, violent illegal immigrants etc, what really makes them angry is seeing large numbers of minority kids do better than their own kids and get into better collges .

What makes them angry is seeing them drive better cars and able to afford nicer homes .

And this is why they support Trump and are able to relate to him so much.

[Dave Starsky]

30. We are all competing for fewer and fewer resources.

Either because the top 1% have been sucking up wealth like a shop vac for over 40 years, or due to the effects of climate change, deforestation, overpopulation, and the like.

At the same, we worship wealth, fame, and "success". It truly is the established national religion. Actual Christianity runs a distant second.

So who are YOU going to blame for the moral failing that you can't provide for your family the way grandpa did? The rich, successful white guys on Wall Street and Capitol Hill, fucking you over your whole life? Or the lazy fucking [epithet]s who just moved in down the street, who "took your job"?

[meadowlander]

4. America teaches you that stuff is more important than people.

Fear that the brown person will take your stuff; suspicion of why the brown person seems so happy without the same stuff; a lifetime of being told that you don't have to put up with people who have different values than you. This is the toxic espresso that the Karens and Chads of the world guzzle daily.

[betsuni]

7. There's definitely worship of property and stuff.

A cultural and intellectual poverty.

[betsuni]

5. I've been obsessively watching hundreds of Karen videos on YouTube.

It's addicting! What strikes me is the aggressive nature of the species. Always fight, not flight (until they're proved wrong and stupid and racist, then they leave). They claim to be threatened but lunge right up into the face of the supposed threat. They make ugly faces and scream. Some sort of territorial behavior. We need a Jane Goodall to study the Karens.

[mia]

6. I'm a white human being, standing right before you. I'm a Democrat.

All I can say is that threads like this make me sad.
What is the purpose of your post?

[ret5hd]

8. I can't believe that you act the way described...

in the OP based on posts I’ve read.

So my question is, if the shoe don’t fit, why force it on?

[mia]

20. I don't know.

Thank you for your response.

[maximusveritas]

33. So if someone said "I find it interesting when black people..."

and called them stereotypical names, would you just say "if the shoe don’t fit, why force it on?" when black people rightly object to being stereotyped in a racist fashion.
While it's ok to call out actual white racists, we cannot tolerate reverse racism without perpetuating the racial divide. This is unfortunately something most progressives are unable to do because they are so paralyzed by political correctness.

[ret5hd]

35. So, your contention is that...

bigotry, self-absorption, compulsions to control the actions of others, etc are inheritable unmutable traits that individuals have no choice in?

[maximusveritas]

37. Sorry, but I don't understand the question

I believe I understand the words you used, but just cannot understand them when put together in this manner? Could you perhaps rephrase it in a simpler manner?

[ret5hd]

38. You contend that being an asshole...

Is equivalent to ethnicity, and should therefore be given some kind of protected status?

Simple enough?

[maximusveritas]

41. No, I'm contending that all races/ethnicities be given the same protected status

You're trying to twist the OP's argument to what you want it to be, that it's just talking about racists/assholes in general, when it clearly is talking about white people as in the quote I referenced. If "Karen/Chad" was a term applied to all assholes, then maybe you'd have a point, but it is only being applied to white people and is therefore a racist pejorative.

[ret5hd]

42. All ya' gotta do to not be a Karen/Chad...

is not be an asshole. Period.

[maximusveritas]

43. According to who? A white lady was recently attacked by a black lady for telling her to wear a mask

People were calling her a Karen for not minding her business and telling this black woman what to do.
Who is the asshole? Apparently it depends on if you're white or black.

[Skittles]

9. all I know is

most white folk don't understand them either

[ZZenith]

10. They are to be pitied, truly.

So much beauty and truth and goodness from which they shut themselves off.

Spiritually they are a dying breed. The world that’s coming has no place for them.

[elleng]

11. cognitive dissonance fostered by a wannabe 'king.'

[womanofthehills]

12. Just like Trump - they probably have a personality disorder

Unable to control their anger - probably in all aspects of their lives.

[BigmanPigman]

19. That's the best and most realistic explanation I have read

on this topic so far. I just read an article in Time mag yesterday and did some reasearch. Something is wrong with these people beyond typical racism combined with anger management issues. They need to see a professional and a proper diagnosis and treatment.

I have to say that my favorite moment after watching 4 "Karen" videos is the one who was in a bagel shop and went off and purposely coughed on a patron for asking the employees to enforce a mask rule when a non-masked Karen coughed while purchasing her food. Karen was throwing an irrational fit then she saw someone filming her and her face just froze, like "oh shit". I am glad to read that all 4 Karens and their partners in hostility (if they had any) were all fired, lost their business, lost their friends, etc once their behavior was made public on social media. Some apologized but I question their sincerity.

[betsuni]

22. I'm wondering if over-medication also has something to do with it.

Side effects. The U.S. has an extremely high number of people on anti-depressants.

[bringthePaine]

13. sadly nascent try at self-awareness - they're too stupid to fully grasp how stupid...

[KT2000]

14. I've been trying to figure this out too

For one thing, trump has enforced the idea of entitlement for racist white people so they feel free to express it - in no uncertain terms. The f word is really overused in these circumstances.
This even goes beyond race into those the entitled feel are lesser than - clerks, fast food employees, etc.
One thing they seem to have in common is their willingness to abuse others. I will bet they behave the same way inside their families if they have one.

We have an abusive president and the abusive people have been let loose.

Also - more than a bit of mental illness around.

[TreasonousBastard]

15. I think that we are simply not at the end of our evolutionary voyage. There's this thing called the

amygdala sitting in our brain, and it's no different than the one in our cats. It reacts to a situation causing various glands to pour out hormones and get the autonomic nervous system acting up. Then the sympathetic system jumps in and we have that fight or flight decision to make.

Cats, dogs, apes, porpoises... all mammals have the same decisions to make. I suspect reptiles and insects do similar things.

With us, though, things get more complicated than two cats hissing at each other. The cats understand that other living things are either food or a predator, with the occasional sexual object. Or, competition for food or sex. So, you fight or run, depending on that quick observation and a quick calculation of how it will end.

Human society, however, has managed to make all of this far more complicated than it needs to be. We still have these latent fears of those monsters in Cave#4 coming to steal our women and children. Maybe even eat us. We know consciously that's ridiculous (most of the time) but we have these ancient hormonal reactions that drive us. Fear of "the other" is what's driving this, and none of us is free of that particular curse.

Most of us have been taught to control it at an early age, but some either haven't been taught properly, or can't be taught.

[Dios Mio]

25. Similar to subject covered in the book:

The Unexpected Joy of the Ordinary
by Catherine Gray

I enjoyed it.

[w0nderer]

16. K & R N/T

[chowder66]

17. I don't think some of them recognize their privilege. They've got it in their head that

their problems in life are not because of their own failings or miss-steps or even by decisions or actions of their 'own kind'.
So their problems must be because of 'others'. They think 'others' are being handed advantages that they deserve for themselves.

They are bitter, bitter people.

[chowder66]

18. And for what it's worth your OP is very good.

[LuckyCharms]

21. A deep-seated sense of entitlement in concert with

not being exposed to or interacting with diverse groups of people during the entirety of their lives, coupled with a lack of empathy (which has many different causes).

The lack of desire or the outright inability to picture themselves in the shoes of another person, the inability to accept even slightly different cultures/classes/sexual orientation. A general lack of curiosity toward people who are unlike them. A sense of frustration that everyone is not a mirror image of them. A sense of insecurity and anger about their own lives, which forces them to assign "blame" to another being. Never having to face a real struggle.

Unfortunately, I am not smart enough to tell what the basic ROOT causes of all of these things I mentioned are.

[smirkymonkey]

40. I think that's a good start, Lucky.

I honestly don't understand what motivates these people either, but I think you have hit on a number of good points. One thing have noticed about most of them is that they have huge inferiority complexes. They are always the types of people who will say things like "That person thinks they are so much better than me." or "Those people act like they are so superior.", etc.

They really go through life feeling persecuted and looked down upon so I think they project their internalized inferiority on to minorities, immigrants, and other oppressed groups of people. Eleanor Roosevelt said that nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. However these people really do feel inferior compared to others who are more successful, happier, more content and at peace with who they are. People who are better educated, more culturally refined, kinder, more gentle, etc. and I think that is why they despise themselves so much. Nobody else does it to them, they do it to themselves, and then lash out at others in ignorance.

They could always change, but that would take too much work. They would rather be lazy and filled with hate than do the work it would take to improve themselves and lift themselves out of their dead end lives. Unfortunately, for most of them, it would take a major life change for them to ever turn things around.

[Duppers]

23. Well said! 👍

those who go straight into fear, hatred and paranoia are people who have only lived a life of privilege and entitlement and are triggered because they’ve never never had to develop an existential imperative to interact with a significant amount of people outside of their own socially cloistered environment.

Paranoia is indeed a deeply-rooted, despicable trait of that political party - one they seem to apply to every aspect of their lives.

[radius777]

24. Citizen vs subject.

Joy Reid gave a good analysis of this situation about a month ago:

-many whites tend to consider themselves the 'true citizens' of America, while 'the other' (non-whites, liberals, gays, etc) are merely subjects, who exist, but for whom their role is (at best) to know their place and serve.
-many whites believe (often correctly) that the laws of society dont apply to them, but exist to defend the white way of life and control 'the other'.
-IOW, "I (as a citizen) tell YOU what to do. You(as a subject) don't tell ME what to do."

That's why we see Trump running on 'law and order' when he himself follows no laws.

That's why we see anti-maskers crying about 'constitutional freedoms' while remaining silent on the gestapo actions against peaceful BLM protesters.

Covidiots are also pissed about the lockdown because it is the duty of the subjects to serve, not care about their own lives.

Note that the Karens and Karls (ps: Chad is an incel term to refer to ladies men) incidents are often 'quality of life' situations where they feel they are enforcing and defending white quality of life, that laws don't apply to them but to the PoC they are 'disciplining' (the cops often also think the same way).

[Sherman A1]

26. Interesting analysis

However, the mentioned group(s) have been angry for a very long time, decades in fact. We are simply seeing more of them courtesy of cellphone cameras. I worked Retail taking their abuse for over 4 decades and these folks have always been there.

People have been angry and become angrier as there economic world was slowly squeezed tighter and tighter while being fed loads of well directed organized BS at the same time. As you add in more of the same, fear of an invisible disease and added restrictions the results are easy or predict. Some corks are going to pop.

The 1% have been working very hard throughout our history to keep the masses fighting amongst themselves and blaming each other for their plight all the while laughing all the way to the bank. This is simply an expression of the methodology that had worked for a very long time.

[Squinch]

27. Mr. Scorpio, I think it's something different. I think all the things you describe are

happening, but they are not the root, they are the result.

For hundreds of years there have been really stupid white people, people who have nothing to recommend them, people with no talents and no importance. But they have been able to look at black people and say, "Well, but I am better than they are. " And everything in our culture conspired with them to allow them to believe that.

Now there is nothing for them to point to. No one is telling them, "Yes, you are so much better than this black person that once you could have owned him or her." Or "Yes, you are so much better than that black person that you have a better neighborhood, or town pool or water fountain."

Now people telling them, "You do not measure up to other white people or black people. You are no longer going to be promoted to be the boss of black people. They can now be your boss, because they are simply better at the job than you. They can have a nicer house than you. They can live in a better neighborhood than you. You are insignificant. You are a person of no achievement and no importance." These people have always been people of no achievement and no importance, but now nothing is helping them hide that fact from themselves.

It is not the proximity to non-whiteness that is intolerable to them. It's the fact that they can no longer use institutionalized racism to escape from their own insignificance.

I think about that woman with the swastika facemask. She was DYING for attention. She was DYING to make people angry. Because that is the only way she can achieve any control or importance whatsoever.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

28. "These people simply can't process the fact that the real world doesn't really comport with the

whitewashed Fantasy America that they’ve been sold."

The thing is, a lot of the real world actually does. America is a white supremacy, and most of its systems are built on white supremacy. It's so ingrained that trying to dismantle white supremacy feels like dismantling America, and if they love America and it's being taken apart, that's scary to them.

[Snarkoleptic]

29. There's cringeworth Reddit "/r/PublicFreakout", loaded with videos of Karen/Chad acting out.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/

[ThoughtCriminal]

31. The behavior has been around for a long time

But now it's being recorded on smart-phones.

[lunasun]

32. Not new -just given new acceptable cute nicknames . Always triggered & way before trump so white

people trying to point & say look it’s all because trump are in many ways wrong and it’s a paint job.
Sure he has emboldened some more and those who didn’t do it before in public places or in front of other white people or phone cameras now assume they can because you know, racist trump is president. Still, let’s face it, most racist anger is not captured on phone cameras even now

But you want to know what really sucks ?
To be a victim of their anger or entitled attacks .
Sometimes small children are witness . It’s traumaitizing enough being an adult. Blood boiling when your children or any young are with you or the event is directed at them

A full acknowledgement of the history of racism by all US citizens and presented correctly in our education system so new generations can learn from the past may reduce the number of these types triggerd by the scenarios you mentioned .
Then again, who knows what generational hate they would learn at home or church to counter attempts at learning to accept equality and justice for all while being privileged

[BannonsLiver]

34. Because conservatism is meant to channel and attract angry people

But unfortunately pretty much everyone in the US now is angry about something. We are a grievance culture.

[whistler162]

36. Simple for the same reason Jemima's and Tom's

get angry when their names are used in racist and sexist meme's!

SO QUIT IT!

[Decoy of Fenris]

39. "Karens" and "Chads" have always been like this, and it's universal across races.

These people take any inconvenience as an assault on their sense of entitlement, the type of person who 'wants to see the manager' over the most minor perceived infraction. Karens and Chads are black, white and everything in between, and these types of folks are just looking for a reason to be outraged. They need to feel persecuted to validate the sense that the world/universe is out to get them, and their outbursts are their way of enforcing their will on an otherwise uncaring and unfeeling world. It's by and large a sense of existential dread and acting out against it. If they can't find a legitimate grievance, they'll make one up and rage against that, instead.

When I worked in the casino I saw shit that you wouldn't believe from men, women, black, white, every possible permutation, all screaming and howling for what they insisted was 'their right' and gods damned to facts. It's been a longstanding joke in customer service even back when I was a young'n working at a gas station back in the 90s; "We got a Karen/Mickey (local name for a guy that did that shit all the time) out front." The names may change, but the behavior never will.