The first ‘space Karen’ takes objection to Elon Musk being called the same name

Dr Karen James, an environmental geneticist, biologist, and the first "space Karen" has objected to Elon Musk being given that name.

Many Twitter engineers and other employees decided to leave on Thursday (17 November), following Musk's request for them to engage in an "extremely hardcore work environment" or be let go with severance pay.

As a result, Musk has been called a "space Karen," "supreme parasite," and "mediocre manchild" by activists who projects insults onto Twitter headquarters in San Francisco.

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But for James, it was a step too far.

"I was space Karen first, dammit," she joked on Twitter.

The biologist also shared a couple of photos of herself, one in what appeared to be a control room and the other she is outside of a shuttle launch.

James is not a NASA astronaut, but she's a self-proclaimed "space fan" and witnessed "2 shuttle launches" and was "the recipient of 2 phone calls from space."

People took to the comments of her post to share their thoughts, many of which praised James.

One wrote: "No, you are not 'a Karen' or 'a space Karen.' You are Karen, THE space Karen."

"Luckily, you are outer space Karen and not waste of space Karen," another jokingly added, while a third wrote: "But you're the Good Space Karen! Big difference."

Someone else simply added: "You win the Internet."

Since purchasing Twitter for a whopping $44bn less than a month ago, Musk fired half of the company's full-time 7,500 employees and a slew of contractors responsible for content moderation, among other things.

Musk noted that the staff "will need to be extremely hardcore" to build "Twitter 2.0," and long hours at high intensity would be integral for success.

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