Memes on Trial: From Permit Patty to Karen

This paper articulates a theory of Black complaint by engaging feminist theories of complaint and Black critical theories of visuality. It focuses on the late 2010s viral video trend of alliteratively nicknamed White women (e.g., “Permit Patty,” “Cornerstore Caroline”) calling the police on Black people and the later Karen meme. Connecting these memes to Simone Browne’s (2015) concept of dark sousveillance, the paper shows that, rather than simply rendering Black people out of sight of the White gaze, the Karen and Permit Patty memes instead place Whiteness and White supremacy on trial by creating a visual archive that legitimizes the testimony of Black individuals living in a climate of anti-Blackness. This paper argues that these memes, viral videos, and the Black online counterpublics that circulate these images comprise an important register for Black grief and activism and suggest an alternative form for demanding redress for Black injury outside the American criminal justice system.