One of the funnier memes of the last few years is the co-opting of the name ‘Karen’ to mean someone that complains and moans about everything, but apparently the stigma is so bad that there aren’t that many of them being born anymore and the name is in danger of dying out.

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Radio One DJ Matt Edmondson is aware of this problem and is apparently so enamoured with the name that he’s willing to pay 100 people out there to legally change their names to ‘Karen’ in order to save the name for future generations. Here’s what Matt had to say about his initiative:

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There’s a difference between a Karen which is the shorthand for someone complaining and just someone who’s called Karen and is more than likely a lovely person.

We looked into it and saw there was a huge decline in Karens being born, it peaked in 1965.

The latest data we have is from 2020 and there are only 325 new Karens and so we figured why don’t we celebrate the name Karen and put some distance between it and the word Karen – we’re on a mission to save the name.

The reason we wanted to do it was because we released a board game called Karen about complaining and what we didn’t want to do was conflate the idea with everybody that goes by that name – it was a Karen-undrum.

We wanted to shout about how great our game was and so that was the aim for us but we were also worried that there could be some people called Karen who might not know this word has another meaning.

We’re going to select someone who puts their details into the website to win a lifetime supply of games.

We’ve had a fair few people put their details in, whether any of them go through with it and decide to become Karens I don’t know but we’re standing by, our cheque book is ready and we will pay for that name change on their behalf.

I have two children Ivy and Willow so I’ve missed the boat but if I have another one I’ll call them Karen!

OK wow so there are quite a few red flags there for me on Matt’s little initiative there. Firstly, he’s quite clearly only doing this to promote his little board game and secondly it doesn’t sound like he’s even willing to go through with it himself if he has another child. Practice what you preach there buddy.

Worst of all is that he’s only going to front the £44.22 it costs to legally change your name, so whilst you wouldn’t actually be spending any money to change your name to Karen, you wouldn’t actually be making any either. So basically it’s only really going to appeal to anyone that wanted to be legally known as Karen anyway but didn’t want to cough up the admin fee i.e. precisely nobody in the world ever.

Completely useless from this guy and I’m not going to link to his dumb website about it or talk about the board game he’s created because of it either. Guy’s a loser.

For more of the same, check out this Karen telling a man he should die for using a mobile phone. Classic.