Three days ago, a woman on TikTok posted footage from her Ring security camera of a recent interaction with their neighbor, someone who quickly asserts herself as an Alpha Karen to rival all Alpha Karens. “Hi, how’re you?” the neighbor offhandedly offers before launching into the real reason for her visit, “I wanna talk about this, uh, Tigger flag. I don’t like it.”
What follows is a minute or so of absolutely surreal, infuriatingly condescending dog-whistling from the visitor, who makes vague claims of nonexistent homeowner’s association rules and community standards, implying that this woman (who is Black) and her home stick out like a sore Tigger tail. Here’s the full video ported over by the same uploader to YouTube. Try not to crack a tooth from gritting your teeth too hard.
“I thought the American flag was real nice. I don’t say nothing about the shrubbery being cut. I don’t say nothing about the backyard. But I don’t like that,” she reiterates for the umpteenth time, conveying that, in the past, this mere declaration of feeling was enough to change her perceived enemies’ minds.
In an astounding display of patience and restraint that we are certain few could muster, the woman (whose name is Ambrosia, judging by her TikTok profile) reminds her neighbor that they don’t live in a homeowner’s association, which we feel confident to read between the lines as something akin to, “Go fuck yourself. Tigger is a national treasure and beloved childhood icon, and you should be thankful this household reminds you of his existence every time you pass by here.”
“No, but there’s rules for the community,” Neighbor Alpha Karen retorts while vaguely gesturing around them. “I don’t like it. It makes it look,” she pauses, searching for the right word, “tacky.” She leaves without saying “Goodbye” or “Thank you for your time,” by the way. But you already knew that.
And just like that, a Tigger flag comes to represent the deepest rot eating away at this country—classicism, white privilege, racial resentment, and, eerily enough, our burgeoning surveillance state. After all, if it wasn’t for the Amazon-owned Ring doorbell installed in the home, none of this would have probably been captured for all to see. How’s that for some irony?
There’s also probably something to be said here about the startling, often unsettling power of online virality, as the Tigger Flag TikTok currently has over 10.2 million views at the time of writing. In a later follow-up post, Ambrosia informs everyone, “I don’t know who told her...[maybe] her grandchild came to it, told her. Somebody told her, because she did what we are calling a ‘Drive-By Apology,’” which apparently literally amounted to a mortified Alpha Karen shouting “I’m sorry!” as she sped by the home.
We seriously doubt the neighbor has truly understood the error of her ways, but given everything going on right now, we’ll settle for shaming people like her back into silence while we let our Tigger flags fly high.
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