Sometimes life becomes a thing you do. You find yourself in bed before 9PM, scrolling through Tik Tok videos and instead of all the thirst traps of shirtless men in gray sweatpants coming up on my FYP, I stumble across crazed Karen videos where these people stick their nose into the business of other people and cause huge scenes in public. Or they are racist. Or homophobic. Or, pretty much, all of the above. There is really no limit to their vitriol.

As I watched those videos, it just made me think “God, it must be so miserable to be a Karen.” Like do they have anything better to to do with their lives? Or is that what their life has become? Something so boring and fruitless that they pick fights with people in public and meddle. Stir. Create shit storms. They are the under-developed villains in the world.

Back in the days where I was attending church–the same church I attended where the cult was run–I knew a Karen. No, her name was not actually Karen. For the purpose of storytelling, we will call her Stacy.

Stacy was an older woman in the church. And boy was she a nosy woman. She was always sniffing for details, trying to live other people’s lives, and her tongue would be the common denominator in destroyed relationships because somehow Stacy got involved and stirred shit up.

I won’t forget a time where I was in a fight with a friend of mine in the church. I honestly don’t remember what the fight was over. Probably something silly and dumb or something that involved a lack of proper communication. I remember my friend didn’t have Facebook. I did have Facebook at that time and I did what anybody in their early 20s did would do with social media: the dreaded subpost. Basically, I was venting about things without mentioning names and putting it on Facebook because… Facebook.

Well, Stacy was your typical social media junkie. She liked my status, one of few people who did. But she didn’t stop there. She seemed to keep an eye on us younger folk in the church. Maybe she had a lonely life beyond church and needed to live vicariously through us. I don’t know. I just know she tried to play detective as if she were Sherlock Holmes in the flesh.

So she took my status. And she started asking questions among mutual friends. She played the whole “I feel like God wants me to intervene and I’m worried” card with one of my friends. Anyway, she eventually took my status posts to the friend I was currently having tension with and pretty much blew open an entire can of worms in the process. See, as I said, my friend wasn’t on Facebook. For me, I felt it a safe space to vent/write. I mean writing is my healing process, even then. I just needed to learn Facebook was a dangerous place to do it.

My friend did not take kindly to it. While my words were vague, Stacy had inserted herself into business she had no right inserting herself into. She thrived on it like some twisted parasite.

And she single-handedly dismantled any chance I had of rekindling the friendship I had with the friend I was at odds with. Sure, it could be argued me posting led to that. But Stacy had a role in that. She instigated and manipulated and threw herself into the midst of something she had business being involved in. She was a vile creature, one I wish I still could dropkick into the sun if I had such abilities.

My friend and I ended up in another fight all over the posts and Stacy’s string-pulling. Things were said. And that was the end of a friendship. I will forever blame that horrible woman.

I think when I see Karen videos come across my phone, I can’t help but think of Stacy. She’d be the very person demanding to see a manager or pitching a fit because two guys were kissing in public. Stacy was a disease within that church–okay that whole church was a disease but she was the rot within the disease. I always wondered what things would’ve been like if Stacy never inserted herself into my personal business. Of course, I’ll never know.

What I do know is that Stacy and people like her are horrible people who thrive on chaos and destruction and don’t consider the damage they do to others. They are the gossiping neighbors, the ones slicing through people with their tongues and casting judgments on people for being who they are.

Can you imagine if Stacy knew I was gay at the time? She’d probably self-combust. That would’ve been a sight. However, given the cult that church often is, it’s good Stacy didn’t know I was gay because then EVERYBODY would know and she’d find a way to twist it into something it wasn’t.

So, why do I watch “Karen” videos when they pop up? I don’t know. Tik Tok needs to be more aware of the triggers it thrusts in my face. But then again I do enjoy seeing “Karens” or should I say “Stacys” being put in their place.

Thankfully, Stacy is irrelevant now, states away. She’s probably still destroying people’s lives by gossiping and spreading shit she shouldn’t be under the guise of “concern” and “God’s will.”

Bleh.

Beyond that horrible aspect of that woman, it’s a testament to the pure hypocrisy within people who attend church. Churches are filled with Stacys and Karens and people who spew hatred and judgment.

But that is certainly a topic for another day.

For now, I’m going to continue laying here in bed, scrolling through my phone, and probably watch Karens get owned because this is what life has become.