Gen Z Declares The New Name For 'Karen' And Millennials Are Over It: 'Where Are The Names Of Men?'

Gen Z has officially taken the heat off Karens by declaring Jessica the new name for those overly entitled, often white, older people with short hair (but not the trendy kind) who love to complain. Various TikTok videos have declared the swap due to the popularity of the name Jessica in the 1990s. But much like when Gen Z declared the Millennial favorite side part out in favor of middle parts, Gen Y is having none of it. The derogatory name swap became a hot topic on Reddit as it gained traction online, with multiple users pointing out both Karen and Jessica are traditionally used to describe women, while there's still yet-to-exist a definitive term for men who behave in the same way. 

"I mean to me it feels like it's just a bit misogynistic. Where are the names of men who do things like this? I mean there are men who do similar s***, and Chad isn't exactly a negative," one Reddit user pointed out. A second wrote, "Of course it is once again aimed at women. Some things never change, no matter how progressive we like to believe we are."

Other Reddit users weren't happy with the whole Karen/Jessica debacle regardless of sex, as multiple called for a ban on using real names in negative ways. "This is stupid. We should not be using people's names as insults," one person wrote. Another lamented, "Can we stop ruining people's names? I already felt bad for anyone that happened to be named Karen and got viciously bullied over it, now we're doing it to another name? Can't we come up with a term instead?"

There could be a deeper reason why Karen (and now Jessica) is predominantly a derogatory term for women and why there's no widely recognized equivalent for men behaving badly, though. In 2020, Fatherly spoke to Dr. Apryl Williams, assistant professor at the University of Michigan and Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, who believes the phenomenon could be as linked to race as it is to gender. Dr. Williams pointed out that earlier uses of Karen often related to a middle-aged white woman who took issue with a Black person or people without cause.

"There's this framing of white women as needing protection," she explained. "... Ultimately, the reason why we don't see so many of these incidents where white men are calling the police on Black people is due to the gender socialization process where women are conditioned to call out and seek help and men are not ... Instead of calling the police to inflict harm, white men simply inflict the harm themselves," she explained. Dr. Williams added, "They are at the top of that power structure and they feel they have the right to enforce white supremacy, or just their power, over others." 

Despite Karen videos being around for years and Jessica now making its way into the mainstream, men, at least for now, are still getting away scot-free in the great derogatory name debate. And while we're not saying women shouldn't be called out people for behaving badly, TikTok has been known to shame women who don't deserve it. If there's going to be an update the lexicon, men should have one, too.