Why TikTok Is Furious With A Vietnamese Restaurant Karen

Karen strikes again, this time at a Vietnamese restaurant in Texas while, ironically, wearing a T-shirt that says "Not today Satan." The video starts recording while the fracas is in progress already. A middle-aged woman is standing at the counter of what the video says is Pho Saigon in Austin, Texas. Apparently, the customer is unhappy because the staff at the restaurant did not understand her order.

She reacts vociferously, to which the TikTok author protests. "You're being rude right now," she says to the already stroppy-mouthed customer, who rants, "Yeah because they still don't f***ing understand to-go. I would have been gone, but she said to-go, and he still didn't get the order." Though the exchange concerned the staff, they remained silent. The argument escalated between the TikTok poster (who was a dine-in customer at the restaurant) and the unhappy customer until, eventually, the Karen threatened to pour her drink over the TikTokker. When she finally received her order, Karen quipped something about the Vietnamese restaurant staff learning English and then marched off.

Judging by the 2500-plus comments on the TikTok video, it pulled at netizens' heartstrings. One user commented and shouted out the Asian American Film Festival: "This is why the Asian American film festival is promoting [AAPI] stories within a project to share and preserve the stories of Asians in Texas." The user who posted the video also took the opportunity to endorse the event. 

The rest of the comments that followed were not as philanthropic, with some calling out the irony in Karen's choice of clothing. "Not Satan wearing his own merch," quipped one commenter. The conversation quickly switched to "finding her" when one commenter said, "if you need to find her, she's probably the pastor's wife at the closest church nearby." While this user may have meant to say this in jest, the responses seemed ominously serious. 

"Tik Tok, need to find her” another user echoed. Finding the TikTok Karen from Texas is not a surreal proposal in the context of this video. The uploader captured a picture of Karen's license plate and posted it at the end of the clip. And judging by the dark turn in the conversation, it may have been tantamount to declaring open season on the rude customer. "I mean if that's her car [...] I might have just looked up the plate number & found the registered owner," noted one commenter.