About

Red Lobster Karen refers to a viral video of a Red Lobster customer, Cathy Hill, getting into a physical fight with employees over long wait times on Mother's Day 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. The video circulated Facebook and Twitter causing the customer to be nicknamed Karen.

Origin

On May 11th, 2020, Facebook user Deluxe Dealz posted a video of a woman getting kicked out of a Red Lobster in an attempt to get her money back for long wait times (shown below). The video captioned, "This occurred on Mother’s Day, may 10th, 2020, in York county PA at red lobster out in East York" gained over 10,00 reacts in three days. The York Daily Record^[7] published a statement from the police officer on duty who said: "She was upset because her food wasn't ready. She wanted her money refunded […] That restaurant's closed; you're not allowed in there. My understanding is all food is brought outside of the building."

Spread

On May 11th, 2020, @ArmoredGoat reposted the video and received over 12.5 million views, 154,400 likes and 30,800 retweets in three days (shown below). The video was captioned, "A Karen Goes Berserk at Red Lobster on Mother's Day (YORK, PA) Woman upset that she has to wait 3 hours for food from Red Lobster on Mother’s Day when the restaurant has a reduced staff."

The next day, Red Lobster released a statement from their CEO on Twitter^[1] apologizing for the wait times (shown below, left). The tweet gained over 300 likes in two days. The next day, Keemstar ^[8] responded to the video in a tweet saying, "Not going to lie, waiting 3 hours for food.. hmmm I gotta defend Karen! I’d want my money back too!" which accumulated over 3,000 likes in a day. On May 13th, Twitter user @tortillablanket^[2] posted a that sign can't stop me because I can't read meme regarding the incident and garnered over 590 likes in a day (shown below, right). The Daily Dot,^[3] Heavy,^[4] Blavity^[5] and Barstool^[6] published articles on the viral video.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References