A TikToker revealed a conversation she had with a Karen regarding her car, with the Karen questioning whether the TikToker could legally operate it because it’s loud.
The video, which has drawn more than 3.3 million views in two days, comes from the @breercf account. While the video just shows the conversation the TikToker had from inside her car, the creator’s also shared photos of her with her car on Instagram.
She prefaced the video with a note stating, “My car is only cosmetics with an exhaust,” and “Cops have come before and said I’m doing nothing wrong.”
The video captures an exchange the car owner had with the Karen. Her on-screen caption, visible throughout the entirety of the video, reads, “Some Karen started banging on my window & yelling at me for starting my car.” It then notes, “She calmed down a little when I started to record the interaction.”
The video starts with the creator saying to the Karen, “I don’t drive this car every day.”
The Karen then karens, “Well, you know, I see it start and go and start and go.”
“Okay, there’s a lot of other modified cars in this community,” the TikToker retorted, and then, as the Karen tried to interject, she pointed out, “I pay for this parking spot.”
Then, the Karen tries to express that she thinks the car is too loud. “I’m complaining because the noise of this car drives me nuts.”
As the TikToker points out, “It’s a V8. It’s not modified. It’s street legal.”
The Karen responds, “I don’t know what that means, but I just can’t stand this.”
“There’s nothing illegal on this car,” the TikToker asserts.
“The muffler? Whatever it is?” the Karen queries.
“There’s still a muffler on this car,” the TikToker explains.
“Why does it make so much noise?” the Karen persists.
“Because,” the TikToker patiently asserts, “it’s a V8 with almost 500 horsepower.”
The Karen then announces that she’s off to complain about it, leading the TikToker to cheerily say, “Great!”
As the Karen leaves, the TikToker does allow herself to whisper, “Bitch,” to let her feelings on the exchange be known.
The creator added an update in the comments section: The cops were called, said she wasn’t doing anything wrong, and the creator’s apartment leasing office opened a file against the Karen as she’d been harassing other people with loud cars in the community. “I haven’t driven my car since the vid was taken,” she added, “but will continue to drive it when I want.”
Commenters were amazed at the chutzpah of the Karen. One wryly observed, “Fun tip: If you start slowly pressing the gas pedal, her voice will gradually disappear.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to the TikToker for comment.
What is a Karen?
The term “Karen” is a vast umbrella that’s taken on different meanings across internet culture. It’s chiefly understood to mean an entitled, often racist, white woman who has a public meltdown that spreads like wildfire across social media. Often, these incidents seem triggered when the Karen meets an unexpected barrier to the privilege of their day-to-day life. (For example, someone tells them they can’t enter a grocery store without a mask, and they respond by throwing produce.)
Men can be Karens, too, though efforts to dub them with a similar catch-all banner like “Ken” haven’t stuck. Critics say the term “Karen” marginalizes innocent IRL Karens and sanitizes racist, abusive behavior.
Today’s top stories
*First Published: Aug 30, 2021, 6:18 pm CDT
Phil West
Phil West is a veteran professional writer and editor, and the author of two books on soccer, ‘The United States of Soccer,’ and ‘I Believe That We Will Win,’ both from The Overlook Press. His work has appeared most recently in MLSSoccer.com, The Striker Texas, and Texas Highways. Based in Austin, he is also a lecturer in the Writing Program at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
