Radio host Kyle Sandilands channeled the anger felt by millions of Australians on Monday when he blasted the Melbourne’s notorious ‘Bunnings Karen’.
The 49-year-old lost his temper while discussing the woman who stubbornly refused to wear a face mask while visiting a Bunnings Warehouse in Narre Warren on Friday.
‘It’s the law in Melbourne: you can’t be outside doing anything unless you’ve got a mask on. The law, the way it is,’ he raged on The Kyle and Jackie O Show.
‘It’s the law in Melbourne!’ Kyle Sandilands unleashed on a woman, dubbed ‘Karen’, who refused to wear a face mask in Bunnings Warehouse telling her to ‘shut up, get home, go away’
A ‘Karen’ is a neologism for a self-righteous woman, usually middle-aged, who tells people how to do their jobs, asserts their rights and complains to the manager.
The origins of the term are unclear, however it quickly became a popular meme on Internet forums such as Reddit to describe problematic women.
While Karen is often synonymous with difficult, overbearing women, it has more recently become associated with anti-vaccination activists and conspiracy theorists who favour unproven theories they’ve read about on Facebook to medical science.
Losing his temper on air, Kyle slammed the woman for trying to use of human rights law as her defence.
Go with it! Kyle that the women’s attitude was ‘ridiculous,’ saying: ‘why can’t you just go with the flow? Why pick on the poor chick and guy at Bunnings that are just trying follow the law?’
‘Human rights violation? You can just test throw that up against the wall every time you don’t like something in life,’ he said.
As he listened to the recording of Bunnings Karen abusing police and staff, Kyle yelled out in frustration that she was ‘so annoying’.
He later said the women’s attitude was ‘ridiculous’, adding: ‘Why can’t you just go with the flow? Why pick on the poor chick and guy at Bunnings that are just trying follow the law. Shut up, get home, go away!’
The incident at Bunnings, which took place on Friday, was recorded by the woman and her video has gone viral, racking up more than 1,400 comments and over 600 reactions on Facebook.
Mask: The woman engaged in a heated debate with staff members and when the manager informed her she needed a medical certificate to be permitted in the store without a mask, she unleashed a tirade about how the store’s policy is illegal and she is being discriminated against
Store policy: The male employee then calmly asked her to stop filming multiple times, all of which she refuses, citing the necessity of the recording as vital evidence of the ‘discrimination’ against her
In the clip, she engaged in a heated debate with staff members.
When the manager informed her that she needed a medical certificate to be permitted in the store without a mask, the woman launched into a tirade about how the store’s policy was ‘illegal’ and said she was being ‘discriminated against’.
A male employee calmly asked her to stop filming multiple times – but she refused, saying it was necessary for her record evidence of the ‘discrimination’ against her.
‘Karen’ then told the man she would continue to shop in the store and there was nothing they could do to stop her.
Police: Other videos posted on Facebook show the woman later being arrested by two police officers outside in the Lauderdale Road car park, After being handcuffed, the woman handed over a medical certificate to show she has an exemption from wearing a face mask
Another video posted to Facebook by an onlooker showed the woman later being arrested by two police officers in the parking lot outside.
After being handcuffed, ‘Karen’ appeared to hand over a medical certificate to show she has an exemption from wearing a face mask.
Wearing a mask in public became mandatory for all residents in metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire from 11.59pm on Wednesday.
On Thursday, major stores such as Kmart, Bunnings, Woolworths and Target enforced the ‘no mask no entry’ rule, allowing them to refuse entry to shoppers who are not wearing the protective equipment.
Victoria recorded 532 new cases of coronavirus and six deaths on Monday.
Compulsory: Wearing a mask in public became mandatory for all residents in Metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire from 11.59pm on Wednesday. Police and army personnel in Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens on Sunday