The Internet Roasts Elon Musk For Being A 'Space Karen'
Ahh, good ol' Elon Musk. The tech-bro definition of Chaotic Neutral. Father of PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and, of course, XÆ A-Xii Billionaire stock-market crasher, and now a 'Space Karen?' Move over manager-callers, there's a new Karen in town and he's a quirky, maverick entrepreneur -- at least according to Twitter.
On Friday, Musk, who said he was experiencing "symptoms of a typical cold," took to Twitter to share the results of his four Covid-19 tests. "Something extremely bogus is going on," he wrote. "Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD."
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Although Musk quickly followed up with questions surrounding the test's false positivity rate ...
... experts rushed to question Musk's ethics, science, as well as the testing methodology.
"It matters what order you received those results," replied Eugene Gu, a medical doctor the CEO and founder of Cool Quit, an anti-smoking organization which according to their website, also provides patients with Covid-19 home testing kits. "If you had the first two tests come back negative earlier in the day and then the last two tests come back positive later in the day, then it could mean you passed the threshold for detecting the coronavirus as they replicated."
"If anyone ever calls you a scientist again I'm gonna point to this tweet, because no self respecting scientist would ever tweet something so anecdotal to such a wide audience without 1) realizing how dangerous that is 2) developing a hypothesis 3) researching it," posted user @TheEpicDept.
"Hey @elonmusk. I have a challenge for you. If you agree to do an ICU or COVID-19 floor shift, I will find you a colleague in a Midwest hospital willing to let you shadow them. You can learn about how many covid-19 cases are "real", wrote Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious diseases physician, and Boston University Professor, referencing Musk's original post and a follow-up post she said could encourage others to " ... treat their results as false positive."
Yet amid these scientific critiques came the now-iconic nickname -- the moniker of "Space Karen." "Rapid antigen tests trade sensitivity for speed," wrote @emmabell42, a Bioinformatics postdoctoral research fellow at Toronto's University Health Network. "They return a result in <30 minutes, but can only detect COVID-19 when you're absolutely riddled with it. What's bogus is that Space Karen didn't read up on the test before complaining to his millions of followers."
The nickname stuck, with Twitter users, as they often do, absolutely roasting Musk under the "Space Karen" moniker.
"Space Karen wants to speak to the Magnetar," quipped famed archeologist, @indyfromspace.
"A red Tesla just flew by me with the owner screaming 'I WANT TO SEE THE MANAGER' #SpaceKaren," added the twitter account of everyone's favorite murderous space robot, @HAL9000_.
"Some people call him the Space Karen. Yeah Some call him discount Tony Stark. Johnny Depp calls him Elon Mollusc Because he thought he slept with his wife. Be he's a Joker, he play poker, he's a radio show toker........" mused @Ghostthatwalks9, referencing "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band.
So, readers, remember -- not all Karens have the manager's number on speed dial and rock Kate Goselin circa 2007 haircuts. Some of them are actually just billionaire tech bros with a penchant for space travel and hyperloop technology.
For more internet nonsense, follow Carly on Instagram @HuntressThompson_ and on Twitter @TennesAnyone.
