There’s a new Karen in town, and by town, we mean the Internet - and this time, the ‘Karen’ is an already popular figure: Tech mogul of Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk.
Elon Musk is known to be what in internet terms would be, “absolutely mental," and for going on bizzare tweeting sprees about anything and everything. He also wants to colonize Mars, supports Kanye West being president of the US and has named his son X Æ A-Xii.
All of this aside, he may have recently outed himself on the Internet as a covidiot.
Musk has said that he tested positive for Covid-19 and then negative on the same day.
Musk on Thursday revealed he is having symptoms of a “typical cold" and “nothing unusual so far," did four tests.
“Something extremely bogus is going on. Was tested for Covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD," tweeted Musk, who is known for his cavalier attitude towards the disease.
The test that the SpaceX CEO mentioned in the tweet refers to the BD Veritor test, a nasal swabs-based test designed to give results in 15 minutes.
Here’s the thing: No test is 100% full proof, the virus was discovered less than a year ago, and the best thing you can do is try to read up about it to understand how it works and what a ‘false positive’ is, and how to know whether you really have it or not. Many people tried pointing this out to him.
But Musk didn’t really budge - and the Internet has a term (other than covidiot) to coin for Musk: Space Karen.
A “Karen" is a pejorative term for someone perceived as entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is appropriate or necessary. A common stereotype is that of a white woman who uses her privilege to demand her own way at the expense of others.
The more we think about it, Musk may just fit the description.
Rapid antigen tests trade sensitivity for speed. They return a result in < 30 minutes, but can only detect COVID-19 when you're absolutely riddled with it. What's bogus is that Space Karen didn't read up on the test before complaining to his millions of followers. pic.twitter.com/a1Snfpm03h— Emma Bell PhD (@emmabell42) November 14, 2020
I will never not laugh at Space Karen https://t.co/InvR5sTRMy pic.twitter.com/92vQfIyzHi— dan hett (@danhett) November 16, 2020
I believe this is the original Space Karen tweet (that account seems to be suspended now though) pic.twitter.com/AfrvvxVIg0— Dinis Correia (@diniscorreia) November 16, 2020
I always thought the phrase 'won the Internet' was a bit daft, but that was before someone referred to Elton Musk as Space Karen.— cluedont (@cluedont) November 16, 2020
My Space Karen submission.#SpaceKaren #ElonMusk pic.twitter.com/ltriVI8fk1— blink_FPS (@fps_blink) November 16, 2020
Remember last year when space karen said covid-19 was no biggie? I do. https://t.co/XnztSwhfXK— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) November 16, 2020
space karen is the best thing on the internet pic.twitter.com/zTIrkx8H60— g. (@gabetorrelles) November 17, 2020
For those of you opening up Twitter this morning, I just want to remind all of you that Elon Musk's new nickname is Space Karen. pic.twitter.com/DaJbgYnkkd— CPAP Machines are Not Ventilators Space Karen (@vipertrades) November 17, 2020
Internet. Do your job.Make Space Karen happen @elonmusk #SpaceKaren $TSLAQ $TSLA pic.twitter.com/1oiZ8u2HYd
— Tess Laqué (@laque_tess) November 17, 2020
Will the name stick? We don’t know. Is Elon Musk positive? We also don’t know, it’s a coin toss at this point.
A vocal critic of sweeping restriction put in the wake of the pandemic, the tech billionaire had earlier said that he would not take a vaccine against the disease when it becomes available.
In an interview on the New York Times’ podcast “Sway" published in September, Musk even defended the opening of a Tesla factory in California in defiance of the local lockdown rules.
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