The term “Karen” has become a cultural phenomenon in recent years. The word is used to describe a particular type of person who is often associated with entitlement, rudeness, and an overall unpleasant demeanor. The stereotypical Karen is a white woman who is perceived to be entitled, demanding, and often racist or discriminatory toward people of color. While the term itself is often used in a humorous or tongue-in-cheek manner, real-life Karen stories and experiences have sparked serious conversations about privilege, social dynamics, and everyday interactions.
Many of us have encountered people like Karen in our own lives, whether it’s in the workplace, at the grocery store, or on social media. Karen stories allow us to share our frustrations and commiserate with others who have had similar experiences. They also serve as a reminder of the ways in which systemic racism and privilege continue to exist in our society.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the most memorable and infamous Karen stories that have made their way around the internet. These stories have all been gathered from the social media platform Reddit.
Karen stories are a fascinating and important cultural phenomenon that speaks to larger issues of privilege, power, and discrimination. Whether you love them or hate them, there’s no denying that they have captured the attention of millions of people around the world. So buckle up, grab your manager, and get ready for a wild ride through the world of Karen stories.
23 Karen Stories On Reddit That Will Blow Your Mind
1. Duck Karen
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“My grandparents live on a lake, and the first 20 feet from the lake is communal property. I was about ten years old and feeding the geese corn on the lake across from my grandparent’s house, and Karen walked halfway around the lake just to tell me that I wasn’t allowed to ‘encourage’ them to poop on her lawn and that I had to stop feeding them immediately.
When I told her that my grandfather said I was allowed she marched me up to his house, rang the doorbell, and only deflated when she realized my grandfather was the president of the HOA and pissed at her for grabbing his granddaughter. From that point on I made it a point to scatter corn on the 20 feet directly in front of her lawn.” – SaltySolicitor
2. Car Insurance Karen
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“My dad once got banned from Ford (the only place that his car insurance covered the three-year late oil change he needed) because they had a vending machine that sold Arizona tea for $1.25, while the can said 99 cents. He didn’t even buy it or want to. He was screaming at the front desk people because of it. The vending machine wasn’t owned by Ford, and they were most certainly not in control of the prices. I have no idea what he hoped to gain out of the ordeal.” – beesechurgermorbees
3. Home Depot Karen
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“When I worked at the Home Depot a ‘Karen’ told me that she didn’t want any black men to install her flooring. I was in charge of arranging her order and told her that we don’t select which individuals exactly will install her floor and that she’ll get who she gets. She proceeds to have a fit about it, demands white installers, asks to speak to my manager.
I’m so glad she did because my manager’s name was Dwayne and he was a real big black dude. Turns out she didn’t want to speak to the manager.” – Trompdoy
4. Candles Karen
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“I am a nephew of a Karen. Was visiting her, and she needed to stop by Walgreens. She had a newspaper ad that stated that some candles were 50% off, so she bought like 10 of them. She got charged full price and flipped out. We’re talking like paying a dollar per candle instead of 50 cents.
The cashier and I both showed her that she was holding an old newspaper and that the offer expired a week ago… then she shifted to, ‘Well, you could have told me more nicely,’ and kept bitching. I just kept telling her we needed to leave. Once I finally got her out into the car, I said I had forgotten to grab a pack of gum. I went back in and apologized to the poor guy.” – mejok
5. Video Store Karen
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“Back in the mid-90s, my mom rented Clerks for the family at the rental store in the Kroger we used to shop at (while having no idea how raunchy the movie is). She was so offended by it that the next day she went back in to scream at the manager at how outrageous it was that they would carry such an offensive movie at a family rental store and demanded that they permanently take it off the shelf, and the goddamned thing of it is they actually obliged her.
They never carried Clerks at that location again, so if you ever tried to rent the movie from a Kroger in Lewisville, Texas, back in the mid-’90s and weren’t able to, I apologize. It is entirely my mom’s fault.” – schnit123
6. Hotel Pool Karen
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“We went to some hotel one night for dinner. The hotel had a pool that was clearly only for ‘hotel guests’ as was indicated by dozens of signs surrounding the pool. My mother told my little brother and I we were allowed to use the pool and even had us wear our bathing suits under our clothing so we could easily get changed after dinner.
Well, they clearly have employees monitoring this, and not long after we jumped in the water security calmly walked over and asked to see our hotel room keys. Since we weren’t staying there and didn’t have room keys, we were politely asked to leave. My mother refuses and insists we were within our rights because we ate dinner there. A screaming match ensues, hundreds of people are staring at us, and finally, the head of security had to escort us off the property before the police were called.” – mox44ah
7. Coupon Karen
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“When I was working retail, this one woman had a big bag of coupons. Most of them were unusable because either they were expired or they were duplicates. She berated me because the system was rejecting most of the coupons. She called me stupid amongst other names, telling me I just wasn’t doing it right. Then as a typical Karen would, she asked to speak with my manager.
My manager came and asked what the problem was. The woman ranted about how incompetent I was because I didn’t know how to scan a coupon. My manager looked at the coupons and the coupons were the problem, not me. My manager [called] out the customer for being disrespectful to me and told the customer to leave the store. I hated working there but I’m so grateful that I had managers that totally didn’t go by the “customer is always right” rule and weren’t afraid to stand up for their employees. That was just one of many incidents.” – d0n7w0rry4b0u7171
8. Medical School Karen
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“In medical school, we had a Karen. She was… not a very nice person. She was notorious for losing her temper on just about everyone and being an overall bully. One day, she picked me as a target, apparently I was sitting in “her seat”. I asked her to point out to me where it was posted or embroidered on the seat that this was “Karen’s seat”. I refused to budge. Prof. entered lecture theatre, Karen protested to prof. Prof. proceeded to give her a verbal beatdown on entitlement and how these types of people make horrible doctors. Karen felt wronged and left. The whole class applauded as she was leaving, she mostly kept to herself afterwards. I felt it was long overdue justice being served.” – IamsomebodyAMA
9. Tipping Karen
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“This was decades ago, but my mother used to sneak back to our table and ‘adjust’ whatever tip my dad/myself would leave. Hint: It was never adjusted upwards.” – lessmiserables
10. Call Center Karen
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“It’s been long enough that I think anyone involved has long since forgotten. Now, I should say that this didn’t happen to me personally, but it occurred in real-time while I was (indirectly) present. I was working for A Phone Company in a call center. We were in training for a new scope of service, and part of that training involved listening to some of those calls that ‘may be recorded for training purposes.’
Normally, the recordings are selected semi-randomly, but this one was specifically selected because it had happened to a supervisor in our center ten minutes prior. Karen called us in a fury. It seems that she had discovered that her son had replaced her number on his ‘five favorite numbers’ list with the contact information of an unknown female. She wanted us to change it back. We legally could not do that. It’s not her phone, after all, and he made the change intentionally. When the agent on the call tells her this, Karen flips her [crap] in the way only a true ‘Karen’ can. It’s the full package: screaming, shouting, accusing us of being crooked, unfair, ‘the customer is always right,’ etc, etc.
At this point, I should mention that Karen was calling from the store in her local mall. After about five minutes of Karen rage, we hear the following exchange: Serious ‘Authority Voice’: ‘Ma’am, if you can’t calm down, you’re gonna have to leave the store.’ Mostly incoherent K-Raging (sounds like ‘I will not calm down,” ‘they’re cheating me,’ and so forth). SAV: ‘Okay – ma’am? – you’re under arrest.’ Shocked, disbelieving pause in K-Raging. ‘I’m what?’ SAV: ‘You’re under arrest, ma’am, for [something muffled and unintelligible]. This final declaration is followed by the sound of a mobile phone clattering to the floor/countertop, from where the salesperson retrieves it: ‘Uh… yeah, sorry about that. I don’t think you have to worry about this anymore, she just got arrested.’ – Frednotbob
11. Return the Shirt Karen
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“Working retail one afternoon and here comes Karen with a return. At first glance it’s no big deal, just coming in to return a shirt. She walks up to the register, hands me the receipt to start processing and we exchange a pleasant greeting. I take the shirt out of the bag to examine it and it is beyond disgusting. There were brown sweat stains all over it, from the pits to the stomach to the shoulder. It looked like whoever wore it rolled in mud or some nonsense. I proceed to tell Karen that I cannot return the product because it had clearly been used and that only unused and resellable items could be returned.
Karen through a fit, started screaming at me and accusing me of calling her a liar and whatnot. I hold up the shirt and point to the brown pit stains and say ‘Karen, can’t you see this stain?’ Oh, man did that make it worse. She continues making a huge scene and demands to see the manager. News flash Karen, I am the manager and I’m not budging. After 20 or so minutes of complaining she finally leaves saying she’ll be complaining to corporate and getting me fired and blah blah blah.
Fast forward a few days. A guy walks into the store, finds the first store associate he can, and immediately asks for me by name. Uh-oh, here we go again. Anyway, my associate brings the guy over to where I’m standing and I politely greet him. The guy spends the next 10 minutes apologizing for his crazy wife Karen verbally abusing my staff and I a few days prior. Apparently, the guy went to the beach and did some type of CrossFit/HIIT training class IN THE SAND. Karen knows all of this; she was in the class with him! The guy ended up not liking the shirt for some reason and Karen thought she could pull a fast one on us by making a scene.
Think again Karen.” – Lovebuttonmyface
12. Bottled Water Karen
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“My mother is not exactly a Karen, but she had a very bad Karen moment once. She paid me a visit shortly after I moved to Switzerland. We went shopping for groceries together. Everything in Switzerland is at least twice as expensive — and my mother did let the entire shop know how overpriced each and every item I put in the cart was. While also insisting that we needed to buy bottled water because she couldn’t drink tap water. (She does it at home, and Switzerland has the better water quality. So I have really no idea why that was a thing in the first place.) So from everything she complained about, the 12 bucks for four bottles of non-sparkly water was somehow completely fine. I never went shopping with her ever again after this.” – OneMore Potion
13. Red Hair Karen
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“One time, Karen put her own hair in her half-eaten plate of food and then threw a royal fit, demanding that her meal be comped and that she speak to the manager. I went into the back of the restaurant, pulled out the orange hair with three inches of regrowth, and asked the Mexican guys in the kitchen ‘Hey, did any of you bring a wig to work today?’ They told me to fuck off.
Went back out, told Karen that nobody on staff has red hair with blonde roots (while staring directly at her disastrous dye job) but the manager said we would be happy to buy dessert for the whole table to make up for this strange phenomenon. The 4 other people at the table were clearly mortified and declined dessert. She ordered cheesecake and they all sat there and glared at her while she devoured it. (Friggin) Karen.” – goodytwotoes
14. Quarter Pounder With Cheese Karen
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“When I was about 9, my dad took my sister and I to McDonald’s one evening. At this point he and my mum were separated, so he only saw us once a week (and those visits gradually petered out to my relief). He ordered a Quarter Pounder with cheese for himself, took one bite, and spat it out into the box. He then stormed up to the counter, ignored the line of people waiting to order, and started loudly berating the woman at the register (who hadn’t even taken his order in the first place).
He screamed, ‘I asked for a goddamn Quarter Pounder without cheese; why the hell have you put cheese on my burger? You clearly don’t know how to do the most simple of tasks. I want to speak to your manager…’ And on and on it went. I felt such shame and humiliation, and I couldn’t even finish my meal. If that wasn’t bad enough, when he finally came back with a fresh meal, I told him in a timid voice that he had in fact ordered one with cheese, and he started screaming at me. Yeah…I wasn’t exactly gutted when those little outings with dad ended.” – Cryptic_Spren97
15. Restaurant Karen
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“Not my parent but my step-grandparent. We went to a Thai restaurant, and they were severely understaffed because of COVID, so the food took around 30 minutes to come out. My food didn’t come out for another 10 minutes; during those 10 minutes he kept calling over waiters and asking when the food will come, and if it doesn’t come soon I’ll give you a one-star rating. It was pretty funny for me, but I also felt bad for the people working there.” – Revolutionary_Blake
16. Cupcake Karen
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“When I worked at a bakery, Karen bought a chocolate cupcake and ate half of it. Karen then asked if she could return her half-eaten chocolate cupcake… not because she didn’t like it, but because she wanted to exchange it for half of a vanilla cupcake, ‘something less decadent.’ Like most bakeries, we did not sell cupcakes ‘by the half.’ She became offended when I asked if she wanted to purchase a vanilla cupcake.” – cabernetcat
17. Nosebleed Karen
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“I used to work retail, so I have come across my fair share of Karens. They were a huge reason why I went back to school and no longer work as a cashier. Anyways, one day while I was manning the registers with a few other coworkers of mine, I had a massive nosebleed right as I was finishing a transaction. I grabbed a tissue and quickly excused myself to run to the restroom so I could try to get it to stop bleeding; this meant that I couldn’t say goodbye to Karen and give the little spiel about how I was oh-so grateful for her shopping with us.
Anyways, after about 10 minutes, I was finally able to get my nose back under control and headed back to the registers. I saw her waiting to the side with a scowl on her face, arms crossed over her chest, the whole nine yards. She proceeded to scold me about how rude I was for not saying goodbye. After I apologized and explained that I had an unexpected nosebleed, she told me I should have tried holding it in and that the customer comes first.” – lamenite
18. Throw Pillows Karen
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“I was a supervisor at Cost Plus World Market, a Karen comes in one night pushing a cart full of obviously used throw pillows and asks to return them. Of course, she has no receipt, and instead wants us to just “look her up in the system”. Except she refuses to provide her information for us to try to look her up. She starts yelling at my cashier and that’s when I stepped in to tell her very politely and calmly that she either needs a receipt or needs to provide us with her name and phone number. She starts screeching and screaming about how we’re [idiots] and she’ll get us fired and blah blah blah, then she demands an apology from the president of the world.
I’m certain she meant the president of World Market, but in her bleached hair fury she said ‘the president of the world’ and I barely held it together as I calmly offered her the corporate feedback number. She wouldn’t take it and instead walked out of the store still yelling and without her cart of dirty pillows. She returned about 20 minutes later, quietly apologized, and took her pillows with her, we never heard from her again.” – ChickenPicture
19. Christmas Clearance Karen
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“My mom used to be a Karen. I can still remember her arguing with the cashier at Zellers when I was a kid over the price of clearance Christmas stuff. It got to the point that the people behind her were yelling at her to stop and hurry up. Sometimes the difference in price was a couple of cents. I was so embarrassed and walked away to do something else while this was going on.” – DisastrousTarget5060
20. High School Friend Karen
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“I was working at my job as a cashier at my local supermarket. We were swamped with people I had at least seven people waiting in my line. One of my good friends from high school was in my line and I talked to him as I was ringing up his stuff. After he left I welcomed the next lady in line and asked the usual stuff ‘did you find everything okay?’ ‘How are you doing?’ etc. Before I could get a word out she asked to speak to my manager. Apparently, I was rude to her for not including her in my conversation with my high school friend. She didn’t even chime in or anything and I never seen her in my life [friggin] Karen man. – Elba-3
21. Photography Store Karen
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“I used to own a photography store (sold cameras and did pictures for passports etc), we opened at 1 pm on Mondays, but I happened to be at the store on Monday morning because I needed to get something, was planning on just grabbing what I needed and go home when Karen tried to get in through the locked door. Door had a sign on it that said we were closed, and a sign with our opening hours. I didn’t turn on any of the lights so it was also very dark inside.
Karen started banging on the door, I was just about to leave so I went outside to tell her we were closed. Karen didn’t take it well and immediately demanded to speak to the manager. I said that I’m the owner, she then proceeded to shout, and curse, so much so that the manager of the supermarket across the street came out to help me. She then tried to make the supermarket manager force me to open my store almost four hours earlier. Didn’t work. Never seen the woman again.” – Pien85
22. Refrigerator Karen
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“Asked for my manager’s personal cell phone number to complain that I (seven months pregnant at the time) would not carry a refrigerator (that she had not paid for in the cost of her room) up to her second story room (we did not have an elevator), rather than just accept an upgrade for free because she didn’t want to unpack her stuff.
She refused to believe we had rooms without fridges and I was just being fat and lazy. When I refused to give her the cell phone number, she asked for corporate’s number. I wrote it down on a sticky note with a smiley face. She came down later and asked to move rooms. I made her pay the difference.” – ghostofgenerayburn
23. Restaurant Karen II
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“I used to manage a restaurant. I had a lady complain about an issue with a previous order and she wanted something replaced. She didn’t have what she wanted to return. She had a receipt dated October of last year. She came in to complain about it in January of this year. She went on to say the manager was a tall white guy that told her that she can replace it. I was the only manager at that time. I’m black. So she threw a tantrum, saying how she was never coming back and was talking about complaining on Yelp. I’m glad I don’t have to see her again.” – slapaho
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