Month: May 2020

Men Who Are Obsessed With Karen.

May 28, 2020 — Leave a comment

Does she even exist (in non-Lana Del Rey form)? Or is it just another conveniently file-able stereotype for “men” to classify women so they don’t have to think so hard. Technically speaking, the evolution of “Karen” as a catch-all term for upper middle class white women with anti-science, anti-“the help” “values” did arise from a real person. And, like all things, the Karen trope existed long ago, not just in 80s-era terms like “yuppie” or “richie,” but, as is the case with most memes that go viral well after it already made the rounds on Reddit, Karen was born there. Specifically from a bloke who was basing the stereotype on the ex-wife of a fellow Reddit user, telling his internet brethren all about how she took the kids and the house. It’s the exact sort of entitlement Karens have come to exemplify to those looking for the perfect witch to burn in the endless American trial called rampant inequality and injustice. Which Americans seem ostensibly more enraged about on a regular basis as their Constitution has falsely claimed life could be otherwise, where other countries appear to be more realistic about the inherent life cycle (under pretty much any economic system) of one party being subjugated and the other doing the subjugating. A classist yin and yang balance, if you will.   

And yet, what’s most odd about Karen taking such flight in all facets of where pop culture is disseminated is that “men” are the ones who seem to derive the most pleasure from wielding the “insult.” That Karen was, indeed, sprung from the rib of a “man,” so to speak, could have some accounting for why they seem to be more obsessed with her than women. Or, it’s simply the age-old story of “men” naturally getting off on anything that debases women, even if only a “subset” of them. Then again, Karen is also debasing herself by being the sort of broad who marries a CEO, a cop (or chief of police), a corporate defense lawyer, etc. What’s more, there’s no denying that the most frequent users of the trope are those who embody the spirit of the Karen class themselves, though, of course, they would either 1) never admit it or 2) think this form of self-deprecation gives them a pass for having privilege. 

The hard-on for turning a “white woman’s” name into something derogatory comes at a time when contempt for white folk is at a fever pitch, and, indeed culls from some of the same inspiration Keegan-Michael Key took in the Key and Peele sketch, “The Substitute Teacher,” transforming white people names into pronunciations that suit his own “culture” (namely, subverting the way Jacqueline, Blake, Denise and Aaron are said) in the spirit of what was done to “ethnic” students in the past by their white teachers. The payback factor in this shoe on the other foot parody feels especially salient in the joy of calling out Karens. Even if the majority seeming to do so are self-hating whites themselves (after all, you have to be pretty self-hating to treat others the way whites with power do). More to the point, “men” who are obsessed with Karen. As if they wouldn’t take plenty of pleasure in turning her around and fucking her up the ass if she let them. Alas, she’s too prim for such things. And that’s part of why “men,” especially, love to hate on her. It’s merely grounds for misogyny (you don’t see no “man’s” name getting dragged even half as much for being a white stereotype) under the guise of being a “social advocate.” Just as much as Karen thinks she is.

Men Who Are Proponents of the Surgi Mask Because It Solves the Butter Face Problem.

May 25, 2020 — 2 Comments

Because “men” have never been very particular or discerning as a breed, there frequently comes a time when he will opt for the phenomenon of a woman known as a “butter face.” You know the trope: a woman with a “hot” body but a rather unfortunate visage to go with it. As in: “She’s got a great body–but-her-face…” Well, never has there been a better time for “men” with low standards to thrive. To “clean up,” as they say, on the unwanted dregs of women now forced to conceal their butter faces in public with a surgical mask–usually “required” in most stores, though that’s a word that has remained as loose with most Americans as the classification of American beauty. To some, so long as it’s a woman with the right body specifications, she’s “beautiful enough.” In fact, “[insert adjective or noun here] enough” is the low bar Americans set for themselves long ago when they decided to settle in a shithole wasteland with terrible weather (yes, that’s shade at the East Coast and its colonial settlers). 

So long as something just barely qualifies as satisfying, an American–particularly an American “male”–is pretty okay with it. I mean, just look at the U.S. president. Not even qualifying as satisfying, yet still, that’s what was pursued, asked for. Just as it is with the butter faces of this world. For who wants a pretty face, let alone anything resembling a “healthy mind,” when one can simply rail the physique that best suits his fetishes? Ones that might further amplify when she chooses to keep her mask on even while indoors. After all, it’s better than using a paper bag instead (see: Nip/Tuck, season three, episode eleven: “Abby Mays”). Indeed, maybe it adds a bit of much needed kink for both parties trying to ignore the elephant that is her face in the room. 

Because women do not have an option to call a “man” something like a butter face in normal circumstances, the victory of the surgi mask in terms of covering a countenance once too unbearable to look at in comparison to a “sick” body (if the body matched the face, of course no one would be looking in their direction at all–also known as: The Fat Person’s Invisibility Irony) isn’t as triumphant for them as “men.” Just another effortless vindication that seems to be merely congenital with having a so-called penis. In one of the many glaring examples of sexism in the English language, there is no official name for a man with a bangin’ body and just an okay, if even passable, face. And no, “butter face boy” or “justicebody” (“just his body”) do not count. Are not nearly as tailored or insulting. 

Which is rather what makes it all the more upsetting that he’s profiting from the labeling of this type of woman during a pandemic. But hey, that’s patriarchy, innit?

Men Who Use the Word “Partner.”

May 13, 2020 — Leave a comment

Thanks to Sean Lennon, of all people, recently bringing the subject back into the limelight, the way in which people refer to their significant others has become a buzz-worthy topic again (as we were all momentarily distracted by the apocalypse long enough to forget about politically correct modes of how to refer to someone or something). As it happened, Lennon remarked via Twitter seemingly apropos of nothing on Cinco de Mayo, “When did it become woke to say ‘my partner’? I mean it’s the least sexy moniker I can think of. It’s as if you’re working together at a law firm. I’d rather be called ‘my bitch.’” But perhaps the subject of how to refer to one’s “bitch” has come up again thanks to the requisite quarantine that has forced many couples in different degrees of a relationship into hiding with one another. With such meme trends as “Will you be my quarantine?” also adding to the pantheon of ways to refer to someone you bone on the regular, it’s no wonder that “partner” might be dredged up again as a means with which to “grossly” refer to someone you’re “in a situationship” with. 

Barring the fact that “partner” does seem like a word John Lennon might have used to refer to Yoko considering his own obsession with “wokeness” at the end of the 60s and throughout the 70s, the legend’s son makes a valid case for why the clinical nature of “partner” should be avoided at all costs. Not only does it smack of the overly PC 90s lesbian tinge that Ross’ ex-wife Carol used on Susan in Friends, but it also completely sucks the romance and ardor entirely out of a dynamic that’s supposed to be replete with such nouns. 

Of course, if one is cordoned off from the rest of society with just one person–as has been sweepingly the case thanks to corona–maybe “partner” starts to feel more viable. Partner in binge watching, partner in cooking lackluster cuisine, partner in grocery shopping, etc. With all the “mystery” drained out of any previously “torrid affair” thanks to being saddled with the same person twenty-four hours a day, why not just succumb to the use of a term as antiseptic as the era we now live in? Then again, if we let language devolve with such a blasé attitude, institutions like the Académie française might actually let COVID-19 be referred to with a masculine article.