Becky was the Karen of the early ’90s (“Oh. My. God. Becky, look at that butt!”)
Clif
I notice that it’s always women that are stigmatized by a common name. Nobody says “Don’t be a Donald.”
Don’t be a Clif, kids.
crow
Don’t be a…Richard?
Clif
That’s less a common-name-thing and more a euphemism-for-male-genitalia-thing.
Jeremy Betts
I’ve never heard anything good about men named Earl. Don’t be an Earl, boys.
Clif
Nothing can stop the Duke of Earl.
(Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl)
crow
Earl Hickey was a pretty good guy.
Mr. Bad Example
trying to, at least
thejeff
“Earl had to die”
a/snow/mous/e
Goodbye, Earl~!
Ain’t it dark, wrapped under that tarp, Earl?
Blindness
…What did Earl Hinderman do to you?
He played Wilson(the neighbr/guy who always had his face covered) on Home Improvement
Lexicon
What about “Chads”?
Clif
Is that a common name.? The only Chads I recall were the hanging kind.
Enigmatic Jack
There were two Chads in my high school graduating class.
DinaJoyce
Also Kyles. We heard a lot about the Kyles during the storming area 51 thing. So. They’re like early 20 somethings (so Gen Z) who live in their moms basements and play video games and read conspiracy theories on the internet all day.
I also think the abbreviation “dude bro” and related forms functions in much the same way “karen” and its derivatives do, at least for younger guys. It’s not a name, but it’s just as clearly gendered. It’s confusing because bro can also be a good thing but usually when you start a story with “I’m a waitress and one time this dude bro came in…” you know the dude bro is gonna be a jerk just like you do if it said “karen”
thejeff
It’s different though because it doesn’t spill over onto people who just happen to be named that.
And there are plenty of insulting parallels for dude bro that aren’t names.
Blindness
Kyle is the female Karen per my nephew who works in retail…
Chads are the people having sex when incels can’t.
Tyler Durham
Chad. No one wants to be a Chad.
Clif
Seriously? I’ve never known a Chad and the only ones I’m aware of are a couple of football players and an actor. I suppose it’s possible that one of them did something scandalous.
But more to the point, I’ve never heard the name used to shame someone. Have you?
Jon
Yes, in fact in current net parlance a Chad is a male Becky.
DinaJoyce
I worked with a Chad. Idk what the stereotype is but he would be a stereotype. He was lazy, but thought he could get away with it because he was attractive. Missed work for like a month because he was in jail for a DUI (so presumably not his first offense).
Spongegirl Circleskirt
Sounds like a Chad to me!
thejeff
I haven’t either.
I know it exists in incel slang, where a Chad is the “alpha” who’s getting all the women leaving none for them. Not sure if that’s what’s being referred to.
Regalli
I have to assume, and it annoys me when it’s memeified by non-incels (especially because it’s always preceded by ‘the virgin X’ and uh. Yeah, ace here, that never gets non-alienating as an insult.) Don’t give their ideas that attention, people.
Solis
In the gaming community “Chad” is pretty much portrayed as the person who acts like he’s better than everyone else…. while he actually isn’t.
FacelessDeviant
Theres even a whole nation named Chad. Thats 16 million Chadians.
Clif
If there are 16 million of them and they all get more than their share of the desired gender, i’m not sure how that would work mathematically.
Unless maybe they are all secretly French.
Greg
Actually, yeah, Chad was a French colony during their colonial days. Maybe some of it rubbed off.
Lord_Circe
No Johns in Smash Bros.
JA
I remember one AskReddit thread where everyone was telling stories about their school bully, and a common theme was that most stories I read had bullies named Josh, to the point that several top level comments were just that observation.
Clif
So we can all agree one way or another that Becky was Joshing.
FacelessDeviant
John is what men that buy the services of prostitutes are called.
Also, its a name for toilets.
He Who Abides
“Henceforth, all toilets in the kingdom shall be known as . . . Johns.”
Jhon
King John was widely despised.
Felix
Seriously, don’t be a Don tho.
CJ
Oh, in Germany there are a few: Horst (an idiot), it even has a verb and flexions: behorstet . it was so widespread in the 80ties and early nineties that feminists invented a female Version, Greta.
Though most other female names indicate a lot more than stupidity. Jackelyn for example was a very widespread name people gave their girls in the 80ties. Unfortunately, a lot of people using that name were unable to pronounce it correctly, so it became a synonym for pretentiousness and low education.
CJ
Uh, it probably was even Jaqueline, the French version.
khn0
Jacqueline with a C like in Jacques, please. We need all these extra silents letters to make us look smart by having longer words.
Zee
Kevin is one, theres a whole subreddit dedicated to it. Also craig in dnd circles.
Also, am i the only one unbothered by the Karen thing specifically bc it’s almost always used against white women? Like, a Karen used her white privilege and white woman tears to punish others, usually lower than her in class or of a different race. After all the years woc had to deal with racist ass stereotype mocking names, I’m not all that sympathetic to the white tears of Karen’s being called karens
BBCC
I do sometimes think Karen is used for situations where it shouldn’t apply – someone having a legitimate issue reporting that issue isn’t being a Karen. Karen, in my understanding, was meant to apply to, typically, white, straight, upper class women behaving in an entitled way and using their privilege to make things more difficult for people who lack it. Someone asking for something they are actually entitled to or reporting an actual problem shouldn’t be considered one.
Needfuldoer
Hey come on, Cliff was an honest mailman even if he was a know-it-all.
Demoted Oblivious
Come and get it all, at Boston Pizza!
gabagre
There’s Chad, Ross (from Friends – I hear the usage as typically ‘you are being such a Ross right now’), and Kevin, just off the top of my head.
Richard => Dick (Penis, Richard is listed, but here for those who don’t know)
Jacob => Jakes (toilet)
Louie => Loo (toilet, or “Hang a Looee” aka turn left)
Johnson (Penis)
Charles => Chuck (throw away)
Chadwick => Chad (waste material still attached from a hole punch. “Hanging chads”)
and we must never forget (despite being a surname)
Santorum (the goopy combination of lube and feces following rectal coitus.)
Meagan
Wasn’t Chad a nickname for like an entitled man of some sort?
walterw
OK chad
someone
There’s Kyle and Chad, for male names.
someone
Which is weird since Becky is the one being talked to, not the one speaking. Canonically (because yes, of course Baby Got Back has its canonical lore, why wouldn’t it?) the girl saying that is called Linda.
I can understand that but this seems incredibly accurate. Especially after one semester. How does Dorothy have any idea where Joyce’s grades should be or that they’re falling in the larger classes specifically? Unless she’s in every single one of Joyce’s classes? Or is she just paying that much attention to Joyce’s academics? It’s kind of throwing me off.
Giguioto
It could ALSO be a rethorical argument made by Dorothy in order to convince Becky to just agree with her by making her point sound reasonable by pointing out opinions as if they were facts and hoping that the other just agrees with her…
For the woman who wants to be the president, it is a talent she needs to learn xD
Clif
Amber, as we have seen, can hack the grade system with ease. Just assume she’s feeding the information to Dorothy. For reasons.
Mancuso
…OR… all of these people are actually Willis.
Clif
Nonsense. The distinctive facial hair would give it away.
Next you’ll be telling me that this is a work of fiction.
Segnosaur
Between basic knowledge (like which classes are taken by a majority of freshmen) and talking with Joyce and others, it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out the sizes of the classes joyce is in.
Exarch
My closest friends in college knew all this kind of stuff about me, and I about them. It wasn’t on purpose or anything, but we just picked up on this info about each other over the course of hanging out and spending time together. I don’t remember any of it NOW, of course, since it’s been like 6 years, but I could probably have told you all the classes of my like 6 or 7 closest friends, what size/type of class they were, and how my friends were doing in them.
To be fair, I shared a lot of classes with my friends too, since we mostly all took a combo of science and philosophy/literature classes.
In some places, the grades are public knowledge. I remember some of my professor just literally posted the grades of the whole class on a wall for everyone.
I hate them till this day, but still. All I’m saying is that it ain’t hard to know :v
At a public/state university, that’s a violation of federal law (if any names were attached). The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 prevents giving anyone, even immediate family (yes, even if they’re paying tuition) any information about a student. That includes grades, pass/fail status, section – you aren’t even allowed to confirm or deny that someone is in your class.
I mean, people still talk. It’s very realistic for Dorothy to know how Joyce is doing in class. But if your profs put your name on that sheet, at a public university, after 1974, it was illegal af.
(I’m also a big fan of more people knowing this shit because it takes away a LOT of the leverage abusive parents think they have, and encourages students to be in charge of their own classes.)
Clif
Well yes. And we posted the final grades on the door with the last 4 digits of the student ID which was deemed sufficient.
Clif
It also has more loopholes and exceptions than you’d expect. For example, revealing grades that haven’t been finalized yet aren’t covered. Or at least that’s what the Supreme Court decided in a case where students were grading each others work as the professor discussed the correct answers.
Enigmatic Jack
We had a professor who did this with the last 4 of the student ID (though he posted them on the class website at a URL that wasn’t linked from the main page.) This was an issue one semester because two students had ID numbers that ended in the same 4 digits.
Uly
…please tell me it’s not one of those schools that repurposes the SSN as a school ID number. (I don’t know why places do that. STOP DOING THAT PLACES.)
BBCC
In Canada, most professors I had just put the stack on the desk and let us find ours or spread them on the desk and likewise. Most put our grades on the back but if it was on the front, oh well. I never really looked at others though – I just wanted mine. Very very few passed them back personally, though a TA in a smaller tutorial might have done so.
250 thoughts on “Skeptical”
Ana Chronistic
I’m starting to think you named her Becky for a reason, Willis
Clif
She needed a name?
Stu
Becky was the Karen of the early ’90s (“Oh. My. God. Becky, look at that butt!”)
Clif
I notice that it’s always women that are stigmatized by a common name. Nobody says “Don’t be a Donald.”
Don’t be a Clif, kids.
crow
Don’t be a…Richard?
Clif
That’s less a common-name-thing and more a euphemism-for-male-genitalia-thing.
Jeremy Betts
I’ve never heard anything good about men named Earl. Don’t be an Earl, boys.
Clif
Nothing can stop the Duke of Earl.
(Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl)
crow
Earl Hickey was a pretty good guy.
Mr. Bad Example
trying to, at least
thejeff
“Earl had to die”
a/snow/mous/e
Goodbye, Earl~!
Ain’t it dark, wrapped under that tarp, Earl?
Blindness
…What did Earl Hinderman do to you?
He played Wilson(the neighbr/guy who always had his face covered) on Home Improvement
Lexicon
What about “Chads”?
Clif
Is that a common name.? The only Chads I recall were the hanging kind.
Enigmatic Jack
There were two Chads in my high school graduating class.
DinaJoyce
Also Kyles. We heard a lot about the Kyles during the storming area 51 thing. So. They’re like early 20 somethings (so Gen Z) who live in their moms basements and play video games and read conspiracy theories on the internet all day.
I also think the abbreviation “dude bro” and related forms functions in much the same way “karen” and its derivatives do, at least for younger guys. It’s not a name, but it’s just as clearly gendered. It’s confusing because bro can also be a good thing but usually when you start a story with “I’m a waitress and one time this dude bro came in…” you know the dude bro is gonna be a jerk just like you do if it said “karen”
thejeff
It’s different though because it doesn’t spill over onto people who just happen to be named that.
And there are plenty of insulting parallels for dude bro that aren’t names.
Blindness
Kyle is the female Karen per my nephew who works in retail…
Opus the Poet
Chads are the people having sex when incels can’t.
Tyler Durham
Chad. No one wants to be a Chad.
Clif
Seriously? I’ve never known a Chad and the only ones I’m aware of are a couple of football players and an actor. I suppose it’s possible that one of them did something scandalous.
But more to the point, I’ve never heard the name used to shame someone. Have you?
Jon
Yes, in fact in current net parlance a Chad is a male Becky.
DinaJoyce
I worked with a Chad. Idk what the stereotype is but he would be a stereotype. He was lazy, but thought he could get away with it because he was attractive. Missed work for like a month because he was in jail for a DUI (so presumably not his first offense).
Spongegirl Circleskirt
Sounds like a Chad to me!
thejeff
I haven’t either.
I know it exists in incel slang, where a Chad is the “alpha” who’s getting all the women leaving none for them. Not sure if that’s what’s being referred to.
Regalli
I have to assume, and it annoys me when it’s memeified by non-incels (especially because it’s always preceded by ‘the virgin X’ and uh. Yeah, ace here, that never gets non-alienating as an insult.) Don’t give their ideas that attention, people.
Solis
In the gaming community “Chad” is pretty much portrayed as the person who acts like he’s better than everyone else…. while he actually isn’t.
FacelessDeviant
Theres even a whole nation named Chad. Thats 16 million Chadians.
Clif
If there are 16 million of them and they all get more than their share of the desired gender, i’m not sure how that would work mathematically.
Unless maybe they are all secretly French.
Greg
Actually, yeah, Chad was a French colony during their colonial days. Maybe some of it rubbed off.
Lord_Circe
No Johns in Smash Bros.
JA
I remember one AskReddit thread where everyone was telling stories about their school bully, and a common theme was that most stories I read had bullies named Josh, to the point that several top level comments were just that observation.
Clif
So we can all agree one way or another that Becky was Joshing.
FacelessDeviant
John is what men that buy the services of prostitutes are called.
Also, its a name for toilets.
He Who Abides
“Henceforth, all toilets in the kingdom shall be known as . . . Johns.”
Jhon
King John was widely despised.
Felix
Seriously, don’t be a Don tho.
CJ
Oh, in Germany there are a few: Horst (an idiot), it even has a verb and flexions: behorstet . it was so widespread in the 80ties and early nineties that feminists invented a female Version, Greta.
Though most other female names indicate a lot more than stupidity. Jackelyn for example was a very widespread name people gave their girls in the 80ties. Unfortunately, a lot of people using that name were unable to pronounce it correctly, so it became a synonym for pretentiousness and low education.
CJ
Uh, it probably was even Jaqueline, the French version.
khn0
Jacqueline with a C like in Jacques, please. We need all these extra silents letters to make us look smart by having longer words.
Zee
Kevin is one, theres a whole subreddit dedicated to it. Also craig in dnd circles.
Also, am i the only one unbothered by the Karen thing specifically bc it’s almost always used against white women? Like, a Karen used her white privilege and white woman tears to punish others, usually lower than her in class or of a different race. After all the years woc had to deal with racist ass stereotype mocking names, I’m not all that sympathetic to the white tears of Karen’s being called karens
BBCC
I do sometimes think Karen is used for situations where it shouldn’t apply – someone having a legitimate issue reporting that issue isn’t being a Karen. Karen, in my understanding, was meant to apply to, typically, white, straight, upper class women behaving in an entitled way and using their privilege to make things more difficult for people who lack it. Someone asking for something they are actually entitled to or reporting an actual problem shouldn’t be considered one.
Needfuldoer
Hey come on, Cliff was an honest mailman even if he was a know-it-all.
Demoted Oblivious
Come and get it all, at Boston Pizza!
gabagre
There’s Chad, Ross (from Friends – I hear the usage as typically ‘you are being such a Ross right now’), and Kevin, just off the top of my head.
TrueVCU
Don’t be a Chad
Stanistani
Chad and Kyle.
Needfuldoer
One its on all the ladies while the other chugs a Monster and punches a hole through the drywall.
Stanistani
Why isn’t Judas a more popular name?
Demoted Oblivious
Many already listed above.
Richard => Dick (Penis, Richard is listed, but here for those who don’t know)
Jacob => Jakes (toilet)
Louie => Loo (toilet, or “Hang a Looee” aka turn left)
Johnson (Penis)
Charles => Chuck (throw away)
Chadwick => Chad (waste material still attached from a hole punch. “Hanging chads”)
and we must never forget (despite being a surname)
Santorum (the goopy combination of lube and feces following rectal coitus.)
Meagan
Wasn’t Chad a nickname for like an entitled man of some sort?
walterw
OK chad
someone
There’s Kyle and Chad, for male names.
someone
Which is weird since Becky is the one being talked to, not the one speaking. Canonically (because yes, of course Baby Got Back has its canonical lore, why wouldn’t it?) the girl saying that is called Linda.
DailyBrad
Yeah, since she has the good hair.
Sirksome
Dorothy why do you know so much about Joyce? Some things I understand but her grades? What’s happening?
Alex Boston
They are friends and maybe they talk about their grades (“what did you get on that exam?” sort of thing).
Clif
This is mystery 3500.
Mada
You should really just relax~~
Br44n5m
Lovin the pfp
Amy
How can I relax with LT screaming in your gravatar, presumably over GGaR ending?
Dylan
Sometimes friends who are in college together talk about their grades?
Sirksome
I can understand that but this seems incredibly accurate. Especially after one semester. How does Dorothy have any idea where Joyce’s grades should be or that they’re falling in the larger classes specifically? Unless she’s in every single one of Joyce’s classes? Or is she just paying that much attention to Joyce’s academics? It’s kind of throwing me off.
Giguioto
It could ALSO be a rethorical argument made by Dorothy in order to convince Becky to just agree with her by making her point sound reasonable by pointing out opinions as if they were facts and hoping that the other just agrees with her…
For the woman who wants to be the president, it is a talent she needs to learn xD
Clif
Amber, as we have seen, can hack the grade system with ease. Just assume she’s feeding the information to Dorothy. For reasons.
Mancuso
…OR… all of these people are actually Willis.
Clif
Nonsense. The distinctive facial hair would give it away.
Next you’ll be telling me that this is a work of fiction.
Segnosaur
Between basic knowledge (like which classes are taken by a majority of freshmen) and talking with Joyce and others, it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out the sizes of the classes joyce is in.
Exarch
My closest friends in college knew all this kind of stuff about me, and I about them. It wasn’t on purpose or anything, but we just picked up on this info about each other over the course of hanging out and spending time together. I don’t remember any of it NOW, of course, since it’s been like 6 years, but I could probably have told you all the classes of my like 6 or 7 closest friends, what size/type of class they were, and how my friends were doing in them.
To be fair, I shared a lot of classes with my friends too, since we mostly all took a combo of science and philosophy/literature classes.
Giguioto
In some places, the grades are public knowledge. I remember some of my professor just literally posted the grades of the whole class on a wall for everyone.
I hate them till this day, but still. All I’m saying is that it ain’t hard to know :v
Thulcandran
At a public/state university, that’s a violation of federal law (if any names were attached). The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 prevents giving anyone, even immediate family (yes, even if they’re paying tuition) any information about a student. That includes grades, pass/fail status, section – you aren’t even allowed to confirm or deny that someone is in your class.
I mean, people still talk. It’s very realistic for Dorothy to know how Joyce is doing in class. But if your profs put your name on that sheet, at a public university, after 1974, it was illegal af.
(I’m also a big fan of more people knowing this shit because it takes away a LOT of the leverage abusive parents think they have, and encourages students to be in charge of their own classes.)
Clif
Well yes. And we posted the final grades on the door with the last 4 digits of the student ID which was deemed sufficient.
Clif
It also has more loopholes and exceptions than you’d expect. For example, revealing grades that haven’t been finalized yet aren’t covered. Or at least that’s what the Supreme Court decided in a case where students were grading each others work as the professor discussed the correct answers.
Enigmatic Jack
We had a professor who did this with the last 4 of the student ID (though he posted them on the class website at a URL that wasn’t linked from the main page.) This was an issue one semester because two students had ID numbers that ended in the same 4 digits.
Uly
…please tell me it’s not one of those schools that repurposes the SSN as a school ID number. (I don’t know why places do that. STOP DOING THAT PLACES.)
BBCC
In Canada, most professors I had just put the stack on the desk and let us find ours or spread them on the desk and likewise. Most put our grades on the back but if it was on the front, oh well. I never really looked at others though – I just wanted mine. Very very few passed them back personally, though a TA in a smaller tutorial might have done so.