Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Arts and Humanities (IJCAH 2020)

The ‘Karen’ Fallacy: Debunking Reddit’s Stereotype of Facebook Moms

Authors
Sophie Ariella Tanujaya, Reynald Setyawan
Corresponding Author
Sophie Ariella Tanujaya
Available Online 3 December 2020.
DOI
10.2991/assehr.k.201201.101How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Facebook Moms, Karen, Reddit, Facebook, Identity
Abstract

The term “Facebook moms” refers to mothers who frequently participate in Facebook group discussions. They use Facebook as a platform because it allows them to create groups to accommodate their needs including attachments and express their opinions without the word-limit constraint. However, there is a stereotype on Reddit that all Facebook moms are karens. Karens are portrayed as middle-aged women who are often racist, entitled, and abusive. The purpose of this research is to see if there is any truth in the allegation by conducting a qualitative study on Reddit and Facebook posts. The analysis includes 120 posts made by English-speaking mothers in six different Facebook groups and 120 posts on six different subreddits. The identity theories proposed by Burke and Stets as well as and Benwell and Stokoe, along with Bell’s audience-design theory. They are used to analyze the data. The result of this study suggests that Reddit’s stereotype of Facebook moms is mainly false. In fact, facebook moms’ groups are often useful for themselves and others.

Copyright
© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Arts and Humanities (IJCAH 2020)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
3 December 2020
ISBN
978-94-6239-285-4
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/assehr.k.201201.101How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Cite this article

TY  - CONF
AU  - Sophie Ariella Tanujaya
AU  - Reynald Setyawan
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/12/03
TI  - The ‘Karen’ Fallacy: Debunking Reddit’s Stereotype of Facebook Moms
BT  - Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Arts and Humanities (IJCAH 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 581
EP  - 586
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201201.101
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.201201.101
ID  - Tanujaya2020
ER  -