The latest viral 'Karen' video shows a woman yelling 'I have a Black husband' as she breaks down in fear of being canceled

• A Twitter video with millions of views shows the complexity behind the hugely popular trend of exposing 'Karens' online.
• The Karen moniker has been used to publicly shame white women who have allegedly done offensive, problematic, or rude things in public. Recently, Karen footage has mostly shown incidents of outright racism or exposed microaggressions following unrest that came in the wake of George Floyd protests.
• In a new case, Karlos Dillard claimed that a woman had followed him, cut him off, given him the middle finger, and called him a racial slur. Dillard said that he followed her home and started filming, at which point she began to scream incessantly for the duration of the encounter, expressing fear that the video would be posted online and she would be labeled a "Karen."
• Dillard told Insider in an interview that he can "be empathetic" with the woman's fear, but that without posting about the incident online, there would have been no "justice" for her alleged actions.

On Tuesday, the latest addition to 'Karen' culture blew up on social media around the quote, "I have a Black husband," a line that's now trending on Twitter.

In the video that had 8.9 million views as of Tuesday night, less than 24 hours after it was posted, an unidentified white woman screamed the line after a man followed her to her home and began filming their interaction.

The video was originally posted by Karlos Dillard, an actor, author, and comedian, whose website says he is "More than just a viral video star."

As of Wednesday morning, Dillard's Twitter account has been suspended. A Twitter representative told Insider that the video was not in violation of its rules, but that Dillard's banner image was flagged as "sensitive" content, and the account will be reactivated once he addresses the violation.

For the first minute of the video, taken in Seattle, Dillard, a Black man, asks the woman to calm down, while she screams, covers her face, and tries to block her license plate, which is clearly visible in the video. She specifically names her fear of being labeled a "Karen" if the video were to be posted online. Dillard explains to the viewers of the video that she cut him off and gave him the middle finger, so he followed her home to confront her. "You don't understand," the woman screams repeatedly in the video.

But later, Dillard claims that she also used a racial slur and had followed him with her car, which was why he followed her home. Dillard didn't capture that on camera, but started filming the aftermath, when he began repeating his story and adding new details. Throughout the whole encounter, the woman screams, begging him to stop filming her at her home and not publicize her license plate.

Throughout the two minute and 20 second video, passersby pause to try and discern what's happening, eventually siding with Dillard, as many people said they witnessed her following him in her car. The woman has not yet been identified. Dillard also posted a t-shirt design using the "I have a Black husband" line on his Instagram and Twitter pages.

Dillard's Instagram stories, as well as stories posted by bystanders and captured in screenshots shared on Twitter, do show the woman driving in her car, and conversations with witnesses who corroborated that she appeared to cut him off in her car before following him.

In an interview with Insider, Dillard shared details of his side of the story. He said that he and the woman were both in a two-lane street that merged into one lane, and he merged ahead of her, before she swerved to get ahead of him and slammed on her brakes and yelled at him through her car window. Then, he said he got ahead of her and took a right. The woman then allegedly followed him, as he took three additional right turns.

After they'd essentially driven in a circle, Dillard said he got out of his car and asked the woman why she had followed him. That's when she began shouting racial slurs at him, he recalled. "She was angry, upset, screaming racial slurs, obscenities," Dillard told Insider.

When he took out his phone to begin filming the interaction, Dillard said the woman quickly drove away. "I just went into the general direction that her car drove. And I happened to literally drive right behind her," when the woman entered what is apparently her driveway, and Dillard pulled up, got out of the car, and continued filming. The rest of the encounter can be seen in the video.

The video has become the perfect storm for Karen discourse

As Karen content continues to take over the internet, new videos exposing white women for allegedly bad or racist behavior are going viral on what feels like a daily basis. While using the moniker "Karen" didn't begin with Amy Cooper, the woman who called the police on a Black man in Central Park in May, that incident has certainly led to the huge and sudden influx of 'Karen' videos readily available online. In a span of weeks, we've seen parking lot Karen, sidewalk chalk Karen, coughing Karen, Kroger Karen, and farmer's market Karen.

The videos, at times, have led to real-world consequences for their subjects, some of which have been encouraged by governmental officials. When Maryland authorities sought out a Ken — the male version of Karen — who appeared to assault young people for posting Floyd flyers in a popular biking and walking path, the state's attorney general asked Twitter followers to help identify the man (After multiple people were wrongfully identified as the perpetrator, a 60-year-old white man was arrested and charged with assault).

In the case of the woman in the video at hand, dozens of comments on the Twitter video zoom in on her license plate, or share information they're using to track her down.

The factual questions around the video are typical of 'Karen' incidents and viral videos in general

As Newsweek reported, it's not Dillard's first involvement in a viral video that calls out alleged displays of racism. On May 28, he claimed on Twitter that an Asian restaurant worker had used a racial slur when he arrived to pick up a Postmates delivery. He said that she was "racist" for asking to see his license to show that he was the correct Postmates driver, so he denied to show her identification. Like his new video, the person did not use a racial slur in the video.

On his Instagram stories, Dillard explained that it's his duty to film these kinds of moments. "You have to stand your ground, and you have to f--king let them know that that's not going to be okay. And hopefully, that Karen won't do that to another Black man," he said.

Some people on Twitter have claimed that Dillard was dishonest about his encounter with the woman, pointing out his past experience with the restaurant worker and alleging that he made "false accusations," as many lamented that this woman's life would be ruined by the video footage (though she has yet to be identified).

People are also using Dillard's voting record against him, as he confirmed in a 2017 podcast interview that he'd voted for President Donald Trump. But Dillard said it doesn't matter whom he voted for, and that racism is a bipartisan issue. "It doesn't matter if I voted for Santa Claus yesterday," he told Insider. "So I really just think that it's really fascinating to see that my character is being picked apart."

As for whether he feels bad for the woman who was clearly afraid, Dillard said he can "be empathetic" with her for what she went through. "White women and black men for generations are taught to be afraid of each other," he said, citing stories like Emmett Till's murder and the 1915 film "Birth of a Nation." Dillard added that if the woman had apologized, he wouldn't have posted about the encounter online at all. "I still got no explanation of why she put my life in danger, not only with her vehicle but with her antics," he said. "I felt like the only justice I would get was to show what happened to me."

Update: This article has been updated to show that Dillard's account was removed from Twitter, and with an interview with Dillard himself.

• Read more:
• How the name Karen became a stand-in for problematic white women and a hugely popular meme
• 'Kroger Karen' is going viral for using a stroller to block a Black woman from leaving a grocery-store parking lot
• The white woman who called 911 after a black bird-watcher asked her to leash her dog has 'voluntarily surrendered' her pet to an animal rescue
• A new 'parking lot Karen' is going viral on TikTok for physically blocking someone's car from an open parking spot