Opinion: ‘Karens’ and eshays are angry middle-class microcosms cut from the same cloth. We need to decide who is a bigger problem

An argument raged online over the weekend about a lady called “Karen”. Karen, as defined by dictionary.com, is “an entitled, middle-aged white woman”. Some say this persona is the epitome of Gen X female anger and assertiveness. Karen complains loudly when her muggacino is made with full fat instead of skim milk at her local The Coffee Club. She is most likely involved in junior sport where she interrupts meetings and complains to the umpire if her child is being picked on, or to the coach when the kid is spending more time on the bench than a Supreme Court judge. Her aesthetic usually involves an asymmetrical bob with blonde highlights, French tip acrylic nails, oversized designer sunglasses and she owns many nice tracksuits. She looks like Kath from Kath & Kim but has the personality (and attitude) of Kim. She has opinions and loves to share them at work, at the pub and especially on Facebook. The internet got fired up about “Karen” thanks to a column penned by ABC presenter Julia Baird which went viral recently when she clumsily attempted to explain this phenomenon and how it was sexist and ageist for picking on women “who’ve spent decades crawling towards equality”. “Men assert, women whinge. Men point out problems, women are being Karens,” Baird wrote. While the Twitter bubble was busying itself with the Karen debate, real Karens, and many other parents around Perth should be more concerned with another five letter word — “Eshay”. Eshays are the pint-sized thugs terrorising our train stations, shopping centres and rubbing shoulders with meth zombies in the city. They are tween and teenage gangs who are described by Urban Dictionary as “those small d...heads whom seem to think they are top sh..” Eshays also appear to have stolen Karen’s style. Both dress in brand name sportswear like Champion and Fila hoodies (even in this heat), carry things like bumbags and satchels and wear expensive sneakers like Nike TNs. Karens have even gone as far as to call out these hormone-infused punks on TikTok, their favourite social media platform. In one video a women wearing an Adidas tracksuit and Nike sneakers strikes a fierce pose under the caption: “Eshays can you plz stop raiding my wardrobe? I’m a 38-year-old mother. I’ve been wearing this since the ‘90s. FYI, if you lose the satchel you might have a better chance of gaining the tough persona,” a woman who posts under the moniker @mizzturbotizza wrote. Both are angry middle-class microcosms but the core difference is that while Karens rant and rave, eshays are stalking and stealing right here in Perth. We saw this last week when a 20-year-old man was attacked by five school kids aged between 14 to 16 from Churchlands Senior High School at the Stirling train station in broad daylight. Matthew Henson was allegedly bashed senseless and is still lying in an induced coma with bleeding on the brain in ICU because these teenage dirtbags wanted his shoes. The Karen thing is just an issue woke people online can get worked up over because it’s easy to rage against society using a key strokes but this emerging eshay sub-culture is dangerous. Eshays have been widely mocked, but last week’s attack was brazen and brutal. We now have kids attempting to kill other young people all for some synthetic shoes. What on earth would possess a 60-kilo kid to fly kick someone waiting for a train? While it’s not known whether the kids and Mr Benson were associated, the point remains. To use a phase the youth would be familiar with, WTF is going on? One concerned mother who has two kids at an exclusive inner-city school said they refuse to wear their “really nice shoes” out in public without her. “My eldest won’t even wear his volleyball shoes on the bus for fear of being targeted by these big groups of boys and girls who ‘dog’ their victims by approaching them asking for a ‘durry’ before the mob descends,” she told The West Australian. Bond University criminologist Terry Goldsworthy has been calling for police around the country to start cracking down on eshay types for close to a year. The former police officer said these wannabe child gangsters are establishing social media accounts specifically to post and boast about their sartorial and serious crimes. “They’re just bullies and cowards and ultimately criminals, because they’re committing criminal acts,” Mr Goldsworthy said. “If you look at some of the assaults you can see the footage of ... they’re punching to the head, they’re kicking to the head. “It’s all the kind of behaviours we focused on when we had coward punching laws come in, it’s no different, you know. Any force to the head can be potentially life-threatening.” While these try-hard terrorists appear easy to mock for their youth and ridiculous style, it’s time to start taking action. Tinea is easy to treat but this antisocial behaviour needs to be eradicated. But as it’s happening outside of school and on the streets, here’s the urgent question the Government needs to answer — do we need more cops, more transit guards or more attentive parents?