The Most Karen Moment Ever Caught On Tape At Chick-Fil-A
An older white woman stands before a young black father with her hands clasped behind her back at an angle that feels designed to inspire aggravation in others. His children are too loud. Never mind the fact that they are in a Chick-fil-A with a play place. If he does not quieten them, she will call the police.
"Go ahead, call them," the father says incredulously. "You sound dumb telling me my kids are making too much noise, noise pollution. You sound ignorant. You sound like a fool."
Then, the manager steps in to inquire if the woman is alright, and the video ends shortly after.
This interaction was captured by a separate Chick-fil-A diner who later uploaded it to their TikTok account, @qbaylorm, in November 2020. As of writing, it has been viewed 244.6K times and has received 25.5K likes with pretty much everyone siding with the father. "I applaud the dude for not allowing her to take him to the next level," one cheered. "I don't get it," another sighed. "Why would anyone complain about children playing? My goodness, it's a playground and they are children. Let them play." Many others noted the privilege at play with the manager immediately assuming that the woman is in some trouble.
Dissecting the Chick-fil-A Karen
Amongst the righteous indignation of the TikTok (and later, Reddit) comments lie a few people attempting to ask for context. "Playing devil's advocate," one wrote on TikTok, "but you know children in restaurants are LOUD and parents just let it happen??" Fair enough. If someone were to politely ask parents if their children could play slightly less loudly, then most people would not consider them a Karen. It would also help if they were in a restaurant and not a Chick-fil-A, which again, has a dedicated area for children to play.
The issue is that they were in a place that is coded to be family friendly, which means loud, and the woman did not leave it at a polite request, but introduced the threat of the police. The second part plays into the morphing image of Karen that NPR traces back to Becky in the nineties and Miss Ann in the antebellum period. Whatever you want to call her, this particular type of white woman uses her privileged position in society as a means, in this case, to silence children of color in a fast food chain.