3/28/2023 0 Comments The joke behind oh my star tekIn 2018, after a white woman called the police on a group of Black folks barbecuing in a public park, the term “BBQ Becky” was coined. The pattern of using these basic names has continued. So though the names have changed now – we’ve largely replaced “Miss Ann” with “Becky” and “Karen” – the idea behind the names is still the same. It was a name Black slaves would use specifically to refer to white women who wanted to exert power over them – power that they didn’t actually have, Brock said. Miss Ann is one example, from the time of slavery. Black folks, he said, have also had names for white people who wanted to be in charge but didn’t actually have any control over them. She looks like one of those rap guys’ girlfriends.”Īnd who could forget Beyoncé’s iconic “You better call Becky with the good hair” line from her album “Lemonade” in 2016?īut the history goes back even further. The intro to the song famously begins with a reference to an unknown “Becky,” insulting an unnamed Black woman: “Oh, my God, Becky, look at her butt. Even comedian Dane Cook, in a bit from 2005, used “Karen” as the butt of a joke, as a placeholder for the friend no one actually liked.Īndré Brock, a professor at Georgia Tech, studies race and the internet, and has also done significant research on Black Twitter.īrock also referenced Sir Mix-A-Lot’s hit song from 1992, “Baby Got Back” as an example. Modern iterations of these names come from entertainment, he said. And Chad.Īndré Brock is an associate professor at Georgia Tech, and he’s spent years studying the intersections of race and digital culture. There are also names like “Becky,” which has also come to symbolize a certain stereotype of whiteness. Though these names have recently become popularized, thanks to the cultural force of Black Twitter, these names aren’t anything new. Others say it’s a placeholder for speaking about the casual racism and privilege exhibited by some white women.īut where do these terms come from, and what do they represent? And what does it mean for people of color, people like Sun, who find themselves sharing a name with this stereotype? It’s also someone who calls the police on black people for, say, asking that they leash their dog in Central Park. Who asks to speak to the manager over the slightest inconvenience. A “Karen” is generally defined as someone who throws a tantrum at a Starbucks. But after the episode aired, Peterson immediately started getting tweets from apparently-Valyrian-proficient, definitely-unemployed people who caught the incorrect translation given in the show, forcing the man to come clean about the little joke, because Internet people are exactly that frightening.Karen Sun is a far cry from the “Karen” meme that has spread widely over social media in recent years.Īside from a shared first name, Sun – a 23-year-old Chinese-American – doesn’t exactly match the stereotype of a middle-aged, middle class white woman who, to use Sun’s words, acts like she “can get whatever she wants.”īut Sun, who has spent years working in the fast food industry, has encountered their fair share of “Karens.”Īnd many have. Peterson explains that the idea to sneak that reference into the show came from series creator Dan Weiss, who probably reckoned that no one would ever catch an obscure joke like that. And yes, those insults do sound awfully familiar, because the guy is actually quoting the famous scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when a French soldier hurls taunts at King Arthur and his knights. But according to David Peterson, who created Valyrian for the show, the Meereenese champ is actually saying that Daenerys' mother was a hamster and her father smelled of elderberries. "And your taste in men is questionable at best! What the fuck's wrong with Jorah?!"Īt any rate, that's what Daenerys' translator tells us.
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