‘I would’ve went to jail that day’: Mother-daughter duo harass man at Costco, but hero passerby steps into right the record

Another day, another bitter grocery store encounter from people who just can’t leave well enough alone.

The era of the Karen is largely over — that was a wild few years, wasn’t it? — but there are still far too many videos that fall within this toxic genre decorating the web, and particularly TikTok. While most people have moved on from harassing strangers in public spaces, there are still the rare few who show up to create strife and stress for others, and seemingly for no reason other than their own disagreeable nature.

Yet another example joined the exhaustingly long list of such incidents, after a mother-daughter pair decided to combine their powers, like an entitled team of Power Rangers, and ruined a shopper’s day in the process. Thankfully, their efforts to control the narrative went sharply off-target, thanks to a conscientious passerby who made sure the entire encounter was recorded.

The resulting three and a half minute video, which was posted by TikToker @sisesjugo, doesn’t show the start of the encounter, but it does start just as things are escalating. A clearly irate man is, as the video begins, telling the pair of women to put distance between their cart and his body, only to have that request promptly ignored. After the women strike him with their cart, things intensify, as the man yells at the women to back off, and an employee even comes by to ask after the situation.

There’s a strange point, mid-way through the video, in which the focus of our quarrelsome queens shifts. They give up on harassing the man in front of them, and instead zero in on @sisesjugo herself. It’s thoroughly aggravating to watch, as the women continually turn around to further cement their Karen status, complaining just loud enough so that everyone around can hear.

Easily the most enraging part of the video comes near the end, when @sisesjugo choses to disengage from the duo only to have them snap in her face to get her attention. There is absolutely no instance in which that would be acceptable, and quite a few commenters joined me in considering murder when the women dared call @sisesjugo “trashy” for choosing silence over escalation.

“My anger issues would be teaching lessons that day,” one person wrote, in a perfect encapsulation of the bulk of comments. Not to mention all the people who are praying for a similar encounter some time in the future, if only so they can release some anger on a worthy outlet.

We may call them Karens, but a study into the sudden rise in “Karen-like” behavior actually revealed that those most likely to lodge a complaint or display entitled behavior aren’t named Karen. They more typically go by names like Louise, Ann, and Jane, but a Karen by any other name would smell as sour. Data also shows that the U.S. is home to far more Karens — or Louises, it turns out — than any other nation, leaving us largely responsible for that notable uptick in outrageous behavior.

So long as people like @sisesjugo exist, however, the crummy, attention-seeking jerks of the world have an obstacle. Evidence shows that people typically dubbed “Karens” are far less likely to act out when they know a camera is on them, which makes the TikToker’s reaction perfect. Rather than step in and potentially escalate the situation further, she sat back, hit record, and let those women dig a hole all by themselves.