This Haunts Me: The Shredded Cheese Wife Guy
One Texas couple became a meme after they went 18 minutes without shredded cheese on their fajitas. What could be worse?
Karens. Even if you don't know them by name, you know who they are.
Karens have been asking to speak to managers all over American suburbia ever since Kate Gosselin debuted her infamous reverse-mullet on Jon and Kate Plus 8 in 2007. "Karens"—the collective nickname for middle-aged entitled white women who love nothing more than being pains in your ass—have been walking among us for quite some time, but as shelter-in-place orders and mask mandates have taken over the world, the presence of Karens has become even more apparent.
Last weekend, a Karen went viral in a since-deleted Tweet for a reason only Karens would empathize with. Jason Vicknair, a 40-year-old man from Allen, Texas, was just trying to enjoy his first date night out in three months with his wife at a Tex-Mex restaurant called Mi Cocina. Things took a turn for the worse.
"My wife, date night after 3+ months locked up on quarantine," Vicknair tweeted, along with a photo of the wife in question staring longingly at a room-temperature skillet of fajita beef. "Waiting for shredded cheese as it's the only way she can eat fajitas. We've asked 4 people, going on 18 minutes now...We gotta quit blaming #COVID19 for crappy service."
Understandably, most of Twitter had no remorse for Vicknair, who has since been dubbed the "Shredded Cheese Wife Guy" of the Internet. This wife of his is a prime example of a Karen, acting with a sense of entitlement. As delightful as shredded cheese is in the world of Tex-Mex food, a lack of it has never killed anybody. You know what has killed people, though? I'll give you a moment to guess.
Unless Karen has some extremely rare medical condition that physically prevents her from eating grilled meats without a dairy topping, she is a whiny child. The instant virality and backlash prompted Vicknair to delete the tweet, but by then, it had already been immortalized in dozens of memes.
Speaking to local Dallas blog Central Track while wearing a tank top and backwards hat emblazoned with an American flag, Vicknair said that he himself is a former food service worker and understands the hardships faced by service workers. He should know, then, that restaurants are very difficult to keep perfectly sanitary, and patronizing a food establishment during a worldwide health crisis is a very bad idea, especially when his state's governor has been quite bad at containing the virus. To each their own, though!
Vicknair claims he primarily uses his Twitter to promote his sports podcast, "Opinionated Much?," because of course he has a sports podcast. He's "still learning how to use Twitter," he told Central Track, but his tweets about poor service are nothing new; if he sees a spill at Target, for example, he'll tweet a photo of it before bringing it to an employee's attention.
As a matter of fact, Vicknair says he doesn't shy away from tweeting his complaints at any brand,—which is also especially Karen-like behavior (he's evidently taking a break from Internet complaining, though, as his account is deactivated at the time of writing). What he doesn't tweet about, though, is politics, because he's "not smart enough to have any political views."
To be that picky about anything as our world faces a health crisis and a social justice revolution is simply pathetic. But what's the main lesson Vicknair, forever the Shredded Cheese Wife Guy, has learned after being publicly shamed?: "I will not be posting anything regarding my wife, obviously." At least he's not throwing fits over having to wear a mask.