Karen Is Dead. Here's The New Woman The Internet Hates.

Karen was once just a name, popular among Gen X women, with no particular associations. However, the internet did what it does best, turning Karen into a moniker for a very specific type of white woman. And now, before the dust has even settled on that verdict, the internet has already moved on. Gen Z has nominated a successor: a new name for a new generation, carrying the same basic charge. But before we get to her, it’s worth asking whether we’ve been fair to the original.

While some may not like to admit it, stereotyping is a natural human instinct, not merely a cultural habit. Like many other human traits, it has evolved to help us navigate a complex world by creating social categories, classifying people by age, gender, or race. Taking this one step further, we also tend to group people by personality traits. We’ve all heard of the “pick-me girl,” the “cool girl,” the “tomboy,” or the “popular girl,” and while these labels may feel harmless or even familiar, they do shape how we see ourselves and others.

Social media has only heightened the ways in which humans attach stereotypes and labels to certain people. The Karen trend spawned from the “talk to the manager” haircut meme, the style being a side-swept bob in the front with spiky, much shorter hair in the back, famously seen on Kate Gosselin from the reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8. The “Karen” woman is typically white, middle class, and middle-aged; her appearance and race are central to the stereotype, but it’s the behavior she’s characterized by that really sets her apart from other women. Karens are seen as entitled, prone to being demanding and unreasonable, particularly in public settings where they’re often caught on camera making supposedly unreasonable demands.

In 2020, when woke politics really seemed to take hold of the world, “Karen” became more than just a funny stereotype and veered into a more pointed and racialized label aimed at white women. As Black Lives Matter and conversations around “systemic issues of racism” became central to a broader push for more equality, white women increasingly became a kind of cultural punching bag. What had started as a relatable eye-roll at an entitled customer evolved into a weapon—one that could be deployed against women with entirely legitimate grievances, reframing them as racist killjoys regardless of context. Journalist Wilfred Reilly examined a number of high-profile Karen cases and found that many of the accused women had been misrepresented entirely: videos stripped of context, accusations built on hearsay, and reputations destroyed before any facts could surface. By the time the record was corrected, the damage was already done. This raises the question of whether one form of stereotyping was being challenged, while another was quietly taking its place. It’s clear that no matter race, age, or gender, people have an impulse to stereotype that isn’t going away anytime soon.

In Defense of Karen

Before we write her off entirely, it’s worth asking: what exactly does society lose when we shame the Karen out of existence?

We’ve all taken a swipe at the “Karen” prototype at some point, especially during our hospitality-industry years. But step back and look at what she’s actually doing. Karen sends her dish back when it was made wrong, which keeps restaurants accountable for their standards. She tells the off-leash dog owner to follow the park rules, which keeps public spaces functional for everyone. She reports transparently suspicious behavior in her neighborhood, which is precisely what neighborhood watch programs ask people to do. She does none of this for applause or recognition. She does it out of a sense of civic principle, because she understands that someone has to uphold standards for a community to remain livable.

It flattened every assertive woman with a grievance into the same caricature, and that flattening had real consequences.

The same culture that made it socially poisonous to speak up with a complaint is now surprised that no one speaks to the manager anymore. Restaurants have become ruder, service has declined, and yet the women who once held these institutions to account have been so thoroughly ridiculed that many have simply gone quiet. We mocked Karen into submission and then acted confused about what we lost.

Of course, there’s a version of Karen who takes it too far—who makes a scene over nothing, who is genuinely rude to people who didn’t deserve it. But most people can tell the difference between a woman with a legitimate complaint and someone on a power trip. The problem is that the meme never really cared about that distinction. It flattened every assertive woman with a grievance into the same caricature, and that flattening had real consequences.

Meet Jessica: Karen’s Millennial Successor

So who is the internet’s pick to carry the torch? Her name is Jessica. And it makes a certain generational sense. While Karen peaked in 1965 as the third most popular girls’ name in the U.S. before slipping out of the top 100 by the 1990s, Jessica dominated the charts for a different era entirely, ranking as the most popular name for American girls from 1985 to 1989, and again from 1993 to 1995, according to the Social Security Administration. Karen was Gen X. Jessica is millennial. The meme has simply updated its casting.

But how is Jessica different, if at all, from the stereotype she’s inheriting? Despite only being the generation after Gen X, millennials grew up in a very different world. The sexual revolution and liberalism were booming, shaping culture and expectations, with many more women disregarding traditions of the past and focusing on independence. At the same time, millennials were the first generation to grow up with mobile phones and the early days of social media, from MySpace to Facebook. Karen is known for complaining directly to the manager; however, Jessica is more likely to take to social media to rant about the infraction she suffered or leave online reviews. This suggests that where they show up is the biggest difference between Karen and Jessica. We’re yet to see any strong definition of Jessica’s appearance, suggesting that the stereotype is less about how she looks and more about how she behaves online.

The Performance Problem

Jessica being mostly an online phenomenon brings into question the authenticity of her caricature. Most, if not all, of the Karen lore feels rooted in seemingly authentic, unfiltered moments; not carefully curated for the camera, but captured as they happened. The meme didn’t come from performance so much as observation, from Karens simply living their lives and people noticing patterns in their behavior. Whereas Jessica, when she films rants online about her latest social breakdown or argues on Twitter about the latest “-ism,” it feels more self-aware; less like something being caught in the moment and more like something being performed for an audience. This is the logical extension of what happened to the Karen meme once it moved from honest observation to political weapon: it created a culture of performed grievance, where the point stopped being to fix the problem and started being to be seen fixing it. Jessica doesn’t speak to the manager. She posts a video about the manager, collects her sympathetic comments, and moves on. Whether anything actually changes is almost beside the point.

Jessica doesn’t speak to the manager. She posts a video about the manager, collects her sympathetic comments, and moves on.

Much of how Gen Z and millennials interact with the world and social media feels like a show, almost as if everything is being performed for an unseen audience. The question is whether that performance actually accomplishes anything, or whether it’s just the newer, more socially acceptable version of making a scene.

Here's What All of This Is Really About

This shift from Karen to Jessica isn’t just about names; it reflects a deeper change in how women are perceived, and how they present themselves, in an increasingly online world. Ever since the invention of smartphones, many people feel that there’s been a shift—where once people could be themselves without worrying about an embarrassing moment being shared for the whole world to see, now some, particularly millennials, willingly bring those moments online, turning private experiences into public content.

The irony is that Karen and Jessica, for all their differences, share the same underlying charge: a woman who refuses to stay quiet. Karen was mocked for speaking up in person. Jessica is mocked for speaking up online. The venue has changed; the contempt hasn’t.

Women today often have to contend with conflicting messages: on the one hand being told that we should be more assertive, while also being shamed if we have too strong or too loud of an opinion. Karen and Jessica represent women who are unafraid to use their voice, and both have been mocked relentlessly for it. The realistic target is somewhere in the middle: knowing when to speak up, but doing so with a level of calm and consideration. Staying silent isn’t always the better option. When no one says anything, it can allow poor behavior or unfair situations to continue unchecked.

Perhaps the rise of Jessica as the “new Karen” also reflects something deeper about internet culture, where trends can feel increasingly inauthentic, driven more by the desire to go viral than by any real consideration of what’s actually good for society. At a time when many people are struggling, and young women in particular are feeling lost, maybe the focus should shift away from labeling and toward highlighting the positive qualities in one another—creating a culture that uplifts rather than tears down. The internet will always find a new woman to hate. The question is whether we'll eventually decide she deserved better.