Happy 2021!
We’ve all come through a bit of a different Christmas and New Year haven’t we? Well, for those of us who took onboard the need to continue with the social distancing rules anyway. Some opted to throw caution to the four winds, but for most of us things had to be done around the New Normal.
Which doesn’t feel very normal at all, but that’s the way of the world for the time being and common sense would suggest we all just go with the flow for now.
But it’s nice to know that some things haven’t changed. Well no, it’s actually not all that nice, because I’m talking about the Karens and the Chads. For those of you who don’t know what a Chad is, it is the male version of the Karen, and they are starting to come to the fore now. Although to be honest, I think they have always been present, but have managed to stay below the radar because we have been distracted by the antics of the Karens.
Both however, are highly toxic.
Karens, as we know, have a heightened sense of entitlement, and can become loudly aggressive when they believe their “rights” have been challenged, which we have seen many times when one of them has been confronted with the directives regarding masks and hand sanitiser. They also have issues with social distancing and anything else that might stymie their desire to do whatever they want. They get downright nasty, and then they get abusive.
Chads also have a well-developed sense of entitlement and are as obsessed with their “rights” as the Karens, but where the Karens tend to throw noisy tantrums when confronted with reality, Chads tend to be quietly sinister. They get sarcastic, caustic, and are also very fond of glaring at whoever has had the audacity to challenge them. You will spot the occasional Chad who can be as loudly vocal as a Karen, but more often than not they keep the spleen to a lower decibel. But it’s just as nasty.
Karens and Chads often present as a pair, which would be par for the course I suppose, like being attracted to like and all, and when they come up against a reality check they tend to operate in tandem. The Karen becomes immediately indignant. The Chad kicks in with the eye-roll, followed by the glare. If that fails to exempt them from having to comply with whatever it is they don’t want to do, despite it being a reasonable request that the rest of us don’t have an issue with, the Karen will then begin to express her displeasure via rudeness and if that doesn’t work, will resort to aggressive body language and shouty voice. The Chad will back her up.
As I mentioned, Chads get off on being sarcastic, but that’s only the start. Chads are also very entitled and strangely, all of them tend to believe they are gifted with a far greater degree of intelligence than the rest of humanity, especially business owners/staff who insist the current rules, which apply to everyone else who enters the premises these days, also apply to the Karen and the Chad. But the Karen and the Chad are hellbent on challenging any form of constraint. Confronted with the hard and fast rules for masks and hand sanitiser, they will go on the attack and that’s where the Chad can get really nasty. She rants, but he quietly throws down the gauntlet and can become quite threatening if that fails to move things along in their favour.
If this isn’t an offence worthy of arrest yet, it should be, because business owners and their staff do have the right to insist on any current rules of entry, which means hand sanitiser and masks these days, and the Karens and the Chads need to be brought back down to earth with a resounding thud because this is life now.
And they need to get over themselves.