If your parents named you Karen, the last few years have been rough.
Thanks to plenty of white, middle-aged, privileged women running wild in an age where everyone has a small video camera in their pockets, “Karen” has become an unavoidable meme. Karen had become such a phenomenon that when San Francisco passed a law criminalizing the racially motivated weaponizing of 911, they called it the CAREN Act.
Whereas the Karen meme found inspiration in the endless examples of white women abusing POC, the pandemic created a more pernicious strain, mask-hole Karens insisting they didn’t have to wear masks. Frontline store employees were already under increased stress from keeping customers safe with COVID protocols, product shortages, and the genuine risk of contracting a lethal disease at work. On top of all that, they had to battle Karens who insisted the printout from the internet in their hands entitled them to a mask-free shopping experience.
Toymaker Namespace is immortalizing the Karen meme in vintage-sized, 3.75-inch action figure form with the “Karen & Joe the Manager” sets.
The action figures come in typical blister packaging on paperboard with two different pieces of art. One of the cards is reminiscent of vintage GI-Joe packaging, and another set Namespace calls “modern.” Each set of cards features a design from Namespace’s Ukrainian caricaturist and illustrator, Samovol Denis. Karen sports a short blonde hairdo synonymous with her people, as well as a shirt with the ironic “Live, Laugh, Love” saying on the front with her face formed into a mean scowl. The tirelessly working Joe the Manager is wearing a facemask, a red smock, and an exhausted expression on his face.
“We’re looking for fun even in uncertain times like these,” said Matt Jacquot, sales manager, Namespace, in a press release. “With these two characters, we want to encourage positive change and even foster a little more tolerance.”
The Karen & Joe the Manager project seeks $30,000 in funds via an all-or-nothing Kickstarter running until September 8th, 2022.
