1 Karen: Stigmatized social identity and face-threat in the on/offline nexus Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich Journal of Pragmatics 188 (2022) 14-30 This paper investigates the interconnections between face-threat and identity construction in the on/offline nexus by focusing on a stigmatized social identity (Goffman, 1963), a local ethnographically specific, cultural position (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005) attributed to some (mostly) American women stereotypically middle-aged and white who are positioned by others as Karens. Thus, Karen is attributed as an identity category to a woman “thought to be acting inappropriately, rudely or in an entitled manner” (Greenspan, 2020). Often, this inappropriate behavior is linked to perceived displays of racism against minorities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-masker Karens also gained notoriety. This relates to other well-known facets of the Karen identity kit (Gee, 2014), such as terrorizing services workers and refusing to abide by rules and regulations. To further our understanding of the Karen identity, this paper provides a multimodal analysis of a sizeable corpus, 256 videos of individuals whose actions and the way they were perceived led them to be positioned as Karens. Its goal is to scrutinize general social demographics and locations related to this social identity and, importantly, what actions and patterns of language and other semiotic modes are perceived as impolite i.e., face-threatening, and thus deemed Karen-like. Face-threat, impoliteness, stigmatized identity, geosemiotics, on/offline nexus, Karen 1. Introduction This paper investigates the interconnections between face-threat and identity construction in the on/offline nexus. This is accomplished by focusing on a stigmatized social identity (Goffman, 1963a), attributed to group of (mostly) American women 1 stereotypically middle-aged and white known as Karens. In this sense, the moniker Karen malignantly positions (Sabat, 2003) a woman “thought to be acting inappropriately, rudely or in an entitled manner” (Greenspan, 2020). Often, this inappropriate behavior is linked to displays of perceived racism against black people by confronting them in public spaces and reporting them to the police for random, non-illegal infractions. Infamous cases include Amy Cooper - dubbed Central Park Karen, both by social and mainstream media - who called the police on a black man claiming that he was threatening her life when, in fact, he was just a bird watcher who had asked her to leash her dog. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the anti-masker facet of the Karen identity also gained notoriety. This ties back to other well-known facets associated with the Karen identity kit (Gee, 2014), such as terrorizing services workers and refusing to abide by rules and regulations. In other words, the actions of those to whom the Karen identity is attributed are widely perceived as threatening 1 The label may be gaining ground, however. In this respect, Ghanmi (2021) and personal communication argued that data from South Korea, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates pointed to the expansion of the social identity Karen. In data obtained from these three countries, the Karen identity was attributed to others when situations perceived as offensive were described.