Politics

The Internet Is Showing Support For The Workers Who Calmly Dealt With ‘Bunnings Karen’

"Might go to Bunnings today to drag the manager to The Hague and hit the sausage sizzle"

by Rachael Conaghan  27 July 2020
bunnings

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Your local breeding ground for extremism (aka the internet) has a lot to answer for; but while we can hate it for giving conspiracy theorists the ability spread their dumb shit around, we can also love it for giving us the ability to make fun of them for it.

The last few days have given us ample opportunity for this. First came the video of Eve Black, a Melbourne woman who was slammed for refusing to answer questions at a coronavirus roadblock (yet still managed to get through). Then came the Queensland truck driver who refused to provide his details and instead asked police “am I a man?” (to which the officer promptly responded, ‘it’s 2020 mate, what do you identify as?‘).

Until recently most of these interactions have been between “sovereign citizens” and police officers who are tasked with enforcing public health orders, but since Victoria introduced mandatory face masks we’re also seeing regular people having to hold others accountable.

Enter ‘Bunnings Karen’.

Bunnings Karen does not want to wear a face mask. Bunnings Karen has decided to take a stand against those who are “in breach of the 1948 charter of human rights to discriminate against men and women”. Bunnings Karen has decided the best way to do this is to abuse staff at her local hardware store.

The video of this Melbourne woman — since identified as Kerry Nash — has gone viral, with people roundly condemning her selfish actions. But now the focus has rightly shifted away from this woman and her nonsense, and onto the staff at Bunnings who were incredibly calm through the whole ordeal.

While they were no doubt screaming internally throughout the entire exchange, externally they managed to keep calm — and for that they deserve a medal (personally I’d settle for a lifetime supply of free sausage sizzles).

People are applauding the actions of the workers who had to deal with this woman, and offering their support.

Others are leaning into the tangled web of coronavirus conspiracy theories.

The woman in question has since released another video harassing staff at Australia Post — the whole thing has gotten so out of hand that the actual Executive Director of the Human Rights Law Centre has had to take to Twitter to explain human rights to us all.

Today Victoria recoded its worst day of the pandemic, with 532 new cases and another six deaths.