The internet has decided that Velma from Scooby Doo is the new Karen. Or maybe the original Karen, it's not clear. But regardless of whether she's the OG or not, 34 people signed a petition for Warner Brothers to change Velma's superpower in the MultiVersus fighting game, and Warner Brothers listened.
Jinkies!
The petition bemoaned:
In her moveset, there is a ultimate charge up move where in Velma gathers "clues" and can then summon a cop car to chase down her opponents. Although historically, the Scooby Doo gang has (but not always) worked with the police to catch the suspect within the cartoons, this cop car is not necessary in the game nor does it add meaning to her moveset. For decades, and especially in recent times, Black & Indigenous people of color around the world have suffered under police brutality and this cop car is ignoring the problem of police brutality in this day in age.
So basically, because Velma's character's move in the game was calling the police, as Scooby-Doo and the gang typically did upon solving a mystery, this made her character in the game extremely problematic. Well at least for the 34 users who cared enough to sign the petition.
The petition started after a few people complained on Twitter about Velma being a "real Karen" (AOL defined Karen in this instance as "a term coined by the internet to refer to a white woman who uses their status and power to humiliate a person of color").
This reads like a joke to me, but I guess some people took it seriously, because Warner Brothers' latest update to the game removes this feature from the game, and instead Velma now calls the Mystery Machine for backup.
In my opinion, Velma's character is being seriously maligned here. Would a real "Karen" bother gathering clues and evidence before calling the police? I don't think so. And what do they imagine the gang will do to the criminals once they catch them in the Mystery Machine? Torture them in the backseat?
You do realize that tying up people and throwing them in your car is kidnapping, right?
This whole thing was obviously not thought out by the protesters. But then again, these manufactured controversies rarely are.
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