Gen Z is retiring "Karen"-and the replacement name is starting fights - Silicon Canals

""Karen" had a long run as internet shorthand for entitled, manager-seeking behavior. But a new name is emerging from TikTok's churn: "Jessica." Over the past several weeks, creators, commenters, and then news outlets have converged on the idea that Gen Z has crowned "Jessica" as the millennial successor to "Karen." The claim is viral, the pushback is loud, and the paper trail leads back to a specific wave of TikTok videos from mid-2025 that solidified into a meme."

"The spark wasn't a study or a newsroom brainstorm. It was a comment thread. In July 2025, TikTok creators began asking a simple question: if "Karen" was the boomer/Gen X label, what's the millennial equivalent? As users volleyed names-"Ashley," "Tiffany," "Brittany"-one line kept resurfacing: "Jessica, and I just know she's a nurse." That quip, repeated and stitched across clips, nudged "Jessica" into pole position and turned a guessing game into a consensus."

"If you want the closest thing to a root-source map, The Daily Dot's compilation rounds up embedded TikToks from creators who accelerated the shift, including polls that invited followers to pick a "millennial Karen" and stitches that repeated the now-familiar "nurse" punch line. Their coverage makes clear this wasn't a top-down declaration; it's a consensus that congealed in comments and stitches before journalists summarized it."

Gen Z TikTok users elevated "Jessica" as the millennial counterpart to "Karen" through comment threads, polls, and stitched videos in mid-2025. A recurring line—"Jessica, and I just know she's a nurse"—spread across clips and polls, pushing the name into prominence. Compilations of those TikToks show the label emerged organically from user interactions rather than from a single media instigation. The choice reflects demographic name patterns: "Jessica" was a common millennial baby name, making it an intuitive shorthand target. The meme generated pushback over stereotyping and its broader social implications.

Read at Silicon Canals