What In The Hell Is Wrong With This Country?: January 8, 2023 Edition

In today's edition of "What in the Hell is Wrong With This Country?" we find ourselves in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a white woman has started a business called Karens for Hire. What kinds of services does Karens for Hire offer? They're renting out their time to unleash white female rage on those who have done you wrong, of course!

Karens for Hire, started by Fallon Zecca and her partner Chris Grimm, promises to "harness the power of accomplished complainers in the service of beaten-down customers, abused tenants, and anyone else with a dispute that outstripped their capacity to carp [Washington Post]." Their motto?

We Karen, so you don't have to.

Oh, and I can't forget the prominent tagline under their logo: entitled to help.

ENTITLED to help.

Yep.

Have you got a problem? Customer service issues? Dispute with your landlord, mechanic, or a local business? Need someone to be reprimanded because they did you wrong? Hire a Karen!

Real talk? A white woman has monetized the fact that white women have been called out for harming others with their entitlement while trying to paint herself and others like her as the heroines this world needs. She's got a whole damn LLC built around weaponizing white female power, privilege, and abuse to dole out abuses of power and privilege in the guise of "essential services."

Whew, y'all.

This is one of the most white power and privilege-driven business ideas I've ever seen.

Their website is a tasteless nightmare of services they offer painted with a veneer of "good white people doing good things." Why do I say this? Well, here's the most prominent quote on the main page of the Karens for Hire website:

"I know what it's like to lose. Feel so desperately, that you were right, yet to fail, nonetheless."
–Thanos

Thanos. THANOS. The fucking villain from the Avengers movies. They're quoting Thanos. But it doesn't stop there. They also quote The Joker from the Dark Knight ("Do you know how I got these scars?") and Saruman from Lord of the Rings ("I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly, but you have elected the way of pain!").

A page on their website outlines their services for dealing with customer service issues. The first line of the content meant to sell possible customers how these services work paraphrases Bane from the Dark Knight Rises. How do they paraphrase Bane?

"You merely adopted anger for poor customer service. Our Karens were born in it, molded by it."

I'm sure that Fallon and Chris think the tone they're taking with their website is hilarious, hip, and a barrier breaker. I'm sure they believe that their services are valid and necessary. I think it helps to offer people, especially marginalized folx, Global Majority folx, and immigrants in this country who are harmed by western ideologies while trying to live and thrive, tools, guidance, and support. Real talk? There are a lot of companies, businesses, and city and state government offices that screw people over every day. Any tips, techniques, and support we can offer one another to meet our needs and get the services we deserve are vital and helpful. And I don't have an issue with a service that helps those without a voice be heard. Companies, their senior leaders, and decision-makers should be held accountable for the harm their decisions and actions cause. Same with government agencies and insurance companies. During this pandemic, I've spent hours on the phone with unemployment offices and insurance companies, trying to help employees in companies I've worked for. I've supported and guided people for years, advocating for themselves and fighting for what they, and all people, deserve – respect and dignity.

According to the Washington Post, Karens For Hire touts the following clients currently on their docket:

"1. The Massachusetts dressmaker being stiffed by a celebrity chef who wore her creation at the Met Gala and then refused to return or pay for it.

2. The woman trying to end her $4,500 deal with the matchmaker It's Just Lunch after she asked for a man who loved hiking and was matched instead with a man who mostly wanted to try on women's shoes.

3. The low-income tenant in Memphis, a single mother on disability, being pushed out of her apartment in an apparent violation of rental laws."

I can't be mad at anyone wanting to help these three people and fight for them, and I'm saying this as a recovering co-dependent. I would step up for these folx and help them fight even as I unpack my codependence. I view it as a decent thing to do. But my gut won't let me give Karens for Hire a pass and look at their efforts as altruistic.

Something about this situation, this Karens for Hire startup, does not feel right, y'all.

Maybe it's the optics of Fallon and Chris acting like being a "Karen" is an amusing premise to start a business from, disregarding how dangerous "Karens" are and have been for centuries before they received a label. It could be Fallon Zecca's statement that they "want to harness the power of Karens for good," like this is a rehabilitation tour for Karens. Maybe it's the claims in the Washington Post write-up that Fallon and Chris are stringent in whom they hire to be a Karen, stating that "some who tried to join their team have been too Karen" (whatever the hell that means). Maybe it's the approach to their website and marketing, using quotes steeped in a pop culture-driven mix of white saviorism, white supremacy, and toxic white masculinity that permeates much of pop culture. Perhaps the flippant display of a belief that weaponizing white saviorism and white privilege is a good thing and not the furthering of white saviorism and abuse of white privilege is hard for me to digest in all of this.

It feels exploitative.

It feels like another case of white intentions versus white supremacist impact.

It feels like it's not coming from a place where someone is trying to impact the world around them positively.

It feels like another situation where white people have decided to spin the harm they cause into something they deem as "just" and "good" with no acknowledgment of the damage they've caused that even led them to have to spin it.

It feels like white supremacist capitalism.

It reads like another white person who realized that their dangerous negative traits could be twisted into a neat little presentable package that can get them a positive write-up in the Washington Post and national attention from a white America that feels justified in the centuries of harm it continues to perpetuate.

Let's be honest, y'all. Karens for Hire is crass, tasteless, and steeped in white saviorism. Only white people exploit systems and untenable situations they created and continue enforcing and reinforcing to make a buck. Only a white person would go out of their way to find a way to make money off of weaponized white supremacy and racism that has led to countless lynchings and the endangering of Black and Brown lives and spin it like they're serving the community with a splash of humor. And because we live in a country, in a culture, where we've all seen white women unleash their wrath on the populace over things as trivial as their eggs not being poached just right and as life-altering as calling the police on "suspicious people?" Hiring a Karen might sound like a great idea. If you've ever had to endure being on the receiving end of the abuse of a "wronged" white woman (and Lord, have I had to be on the receiving end of that heat on numerous occasions)? Hiring a white woman to reprimand, chastise, check, and yell at someone else for you and get you some justice and closure probably sounds nice.

Until you realize that you're combating white supremacist systems and values by siccing white supremacy-driven entitled white women on the systems their whiteness created.

That is some messy shit to sit with, even if you get the justice you seek. It’s another area in the lives of melanated people where they must play the game to survive, and we’ve already got too many of those.

Yeah, Fallon and Chris have helped some folx. They've even pivoted their business toward helping immigrants and melanated communities in some areas. But they're also monetizing their privilege and power as vocal and entitled white people while displaying no understanding on their website or in interviews about how messed up their service is. Because real talk?

If we didn't live in a societal culture steeped in white supremacy and white supremacy-driven capitalism, we wouldn't have to rely on villains to combat villains.

And we sure as hell wouldn't have to pay the villains to stroke their egotistical need to be painted as heroes.

Fallon paints this Karens for Hire business venture as a reclamation of the Karen designation as a tool for good. Sorry, but no cigar. Actions based on white supremacy-driven hatred of others and weaponized to claim what white women believe is owed to them in society in relationship to white supremacy and white male fragility, and white violence can never be a legitimate tool for good.

Fallon wants to act like being a Karen can be a good thing, minimizing the centuries of violence and murder of melanated bodies that white female rage and entitlement have wrought while ignoring the present-day implications of this violence.

That's too close to the “chattel slavery was a good thing" mentality for my liking.