Tropical Storm Karen

Submission 48,639

Part of a series on Karen. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Tropical Storm Karen is a tropical storm which began developing in the Atlantic Ocean in September of 2019. Upon the spread of news about the developing tropical storm, Twitter users joked about the name of storm by connecting it to jokes about the Karen character who appears in memes as an angry, middle-aged white woman who often demands to "speak to the manager."

Background

On September 22nd, 2019, the National Hurricane Center^[1] reported a tropical storm had formed in the Atlantic Ocean, and issued a warning for St. Vincent and the Grenadines, along with Grenada and its territories. That day, meteorologist James Spann^[2] tweeted about the development, warning it could turn westward and hit the United States (shown below).

Developments

In response to Spann's tweet, Twitter users began making jokes about the storm by referencing the Karen meme. User Parker Molloy^[3] photoshopped a stereotypical "Karen" haircut onto a map of the storm's trajectory, gaining over 90 retweets and 590 likes (shown below, left). User @JWButta^[4] joked the cone behind the height of the storm represented "the rising anger of everyone in line behind #Karen as she argues with the manager because her coupons are not working," gaining over 820 retweets and 3,500 likes (shown below, right). "Karen" jokes about the tropical storm were covered by Time^[5] and Twitchy.^[6]