The internet’s favorite villain has a new face, and her name is Jessica.
The internet's favorite pejorative moniker is getting a generational makeover. After years of "Karen" dominating social media as shorthand for entitled, confrontational behavior, Gen Z has declared the term outdated and selected a replacement name that targets a younger demographic: Jessica.
The shift reflects changing patterns in viral video content, where the faces attached to public meltdowns and entitled outbursts increasingly belong to millennials and younger Gen Xers rather than the Baby Boomers originally associated with the Karen stereotype.
Social media platforms like TikTok and X have witnessed a surge in discussions promoting Jessica as the millennial counterpart to Karen, with one viral TikTok video attracting over 23,000 comments debating the new terminology.
The timing is significant. According to the Social Security Administration, Jessica ranked as the number one name for girls from 1985 to 1990 and remained in the top spot through much of the 1990s. This popularity window aligns precisely with the millennial birth years of 1981 to 1997, making the name instantly recognizable as a generational marker in the same way Karen identified Baby Boomers.
The evolution of internet naming conventions
The original Karen phenomenon emerged around 2017 on Reddit before exploding into mainstream consciousness during 2018 and 2019. The term gained particular traction during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, when numerous viral videos captured middle-aged white women engaging in racist behavior, harassing service workers, or calling police on Black people for mundane activities.
Classic Karen behaviors included demanding to speak with managers, escalating minor inconveniences into public spectacles, and weaponizing white privilege through false police reports. The stereotype became so culturally embedded that it spawned visual markers like the "speak to the manager" haircut and phrases like "Do you know who I am?" The term even influenced policy, with Oregon passing legislation in 2019 to punish racist 911 callers.
But as viral content evolved, so did the demographics of people exhibiting similar entitled behaviors. Gen Z users noticed that recent viral incidents increasingly featured women who looked nothing like the stereotypical Karen with her signature bob haircut. These younger women displayed the same confrontational attitudes and privilege-wielding tactics, but their age and aesthetic demanded new terminology.
Why Jessica emerged as the successor
The selection process played out across social media platforms, with various names entering consideration. Ashley received significant support in the comments, with users noting traumatic experiences with both Jessicas and Ashleys. However, Jessica ultimately won the popularity contest for several practical reasons.
The name's ubiquity during the 1980s and 1990s created a massive pool of millennials bearing the name, making it statistically likely that internet users had encountered multiple Jessicas throughout their lives. This familiarity made the stereotype feel earned rather than arbitrary. Additionally, the name's decline in popularity after the mid-1990s gives it a distinct generational timestamp, much like Karen's peak in the 1960s marked it as a Baby Boomer identifier.
Phrases associated with the new moniker have already begun circulating online, including "Thanks, Jessica" and "Not today, Jessica," used dismissively to call out entitled behavior. The meme-ready nature of these catchphrases mirrors the viral success of Karen-related content, suggesting Jessica may have similar staying power in internet culture.
Continued incidents fuel the phenomenon
Despite fatigue with the Karen label itself, 2025 has produced no shortage of viral moments featuring entitled behavior. A woman in Toledo went viral in January after exiting her vehicle to unleash profanities at another driver over a traffic dispute. In September, a woman named Cairny sparked outrage when she aggressively demanded that a 10-year-old boy surrender a home run ball he had caught during a Philadelphia Phillies game.
These incidents demonstrate that the underlying behaviors haven't disappeared. What has changed is the age range of people being filmed and the platforms where these videos spread. TikTok's younger user base naturally gravitates toward content featuring people closer to their own age or slightly older, creating a feedback loop where millennial misbehavior receives more attention and scrutiny from Gen Z audiences.
Concerns about overuse and misapplication
The Karen phenomenon faced valid criticism for potentially evolving beyond its original purpose. While the term initially served to call out genuinely harmful behaviors like racism and abuse of service workers, some observers noted it increasingly being applied to any woman expressing anger or frustration, regardless of whether her response was justified.
Research from the University of Colorado Boulder found that by 2021, Karen was being thrown at women of any race, age, or background who showed anger online. This mission creep raised concerns that the term was becoming another way to police women's emotions and silence legitimate complaints, particularly given historical patterns where terms referring to women undergo pejoration over time.
Jessica faces similar risks as it enters the cultural lexicon. The challenge will be maintaining the distinction between calling out genuinely entitled, harmful behavior versus simply dismissing any woman who speaks up or expresses dissatisfaction. Gen Z's stated intent is to target millennial entitlement specifically, but internet terminology rarely stays confined to its original parameters.
The generational nature of these labels also reflects broader intergenerational tensions. Just as "OK Boomer" expressed millennial frustration with older generations' perceived economic hoarding and social conservatism, Jessica represents Gen Z's attempt to name and critique behaviors they associate with millennials. These naming conventions serve as shorthand for complex social dynamics involving privilege, generational conflict, and accountability.
Whether Jessica achieves the same viral longevity as Karen remains uncertain. Internet culture moves quickly, and today's cutting meme can become tomorrow's cringe within months. However, the behavior patterns these names describe have proven remarkably persistent across generations, suggesting that even as the terminology evolves, the internet's obsession with naming and calling out entitled behavior will continue long into the future.
