Qaren

About

Qaren is a portmanteau combining the name Karen, often used online as a pejorative for entitled white women, and the QAnon right-wing conspiracy theory. The term, which is used to label middle-aged women as right-wing conspiracy theorists, was first used in May 2020 in response to a viral video of a woman complaining that her doctor wouldn't prescribe her the controversial medication hydroxychloroquine to treat a COVID-19 infection.

Origin

On May 26th, 2020, political consultant and Twitter user @TheRickWilson^[1] retweeted a video posted by Twitter user @miarubee, who has since been suspended from Twitter, and said, "This Qaren is mad she can't get poison that Dr. Trumpenstein told her to talke." The tweet gained over 12,300 likes and 3,100 retweets in two days. That same day, Twitter user @ReesusP reposted the since-deleted video and captioned it "#Qaren" (shown below). The video garnered over 153,000 views and 1,400 likes in two days. In the video, the woman explains that her doctor in Seattle was suffering from "Trump derangement syndrome" for not prescribing her hyroxychloroquine just in case she needs it.

Spread

On May 26th, 2020, before the original video was deleted, Twitter user @lapetiteemily responded by saying, "👍🏻for ur👨🏾‍⚕️. Qaren it’s not your legal right to demand to be prescribed a controlled substance that is unproved. U’re gonna burst into tears? For what? You’re👨🏾‍⚕️is doing their job. U have lupus or malaria?No?Then you don’t need #Hydroxychloroquine . A mask is all u got honey." The tweet added a green shirt guy GIF (shown below). That same day, Urban Dictionary^[2] user Berzerkergang defined Qaren as "A portmanteau of 'QAnon' and 'Karen', a Qaren is a female Trump supporter who believes in the ludicrously wrong QAnon conspiracy theory and acts with the most absurd characteristics of a typical Karen and a conspiracy nutjob."

That same day, Twitter user @TheRickWilson^[3] tweeted, "I just added Qaren to the Urban Dictionary, so my day is nearly complete" and received over 16,600 likes in two days (shown below, left). The next day, @TheRickWilson^[4] tweeted, "Last night's Qaren got suspended. Lord" which received over 9,600 likes in a day. The Daily Dot^[5] published an article on the name Qaren.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References