March 30, 1996 was a day of snow and fire in the Brooklyn neighborhood of New York.
To the white storm that fell from the sky was added the fire of an abandoned garage where drugs were trafficked and consumed.
It was the beginning of a story - told in an analog world - that went around the world and the origin of a term - expanded in the completely virtual environment - that is used today to call the millions of people who share their lives with cats .
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When the fire was already under control, firefighter David Giannelli noticed that a cat was going in and out of the burning premises. He repeated the journey up to five times: he was taking his puppies one by one. According to Giannelli, in the last forays she was already so affected by smoke and flames that she was crashing her nose against them to recognize them. He managed to get them all out.
Giannelli handed over the six animals to the North Shore Animal League, an association founded in 1944, which took care of them. When they managed to cure them, the next challenge began: to find a family for each of the five cats - one of the cubs died from the wounds. The problem, contrary to what usually happens with animal adoptions, was the excess of applications. In just over a month, more than 6,000 letters had been received. Scarlett's story — that's what the mother cat was called — took up pages in newspapers and minutes on radio and television in various countries. Popular presenter Oprah Winfrey offered first-class tickets to Chicago for the cats, with the goal of getting them to participate in her special Mother's Day show. The shelter did not agree.
Out of the thousands of letters received to adopt Scarlett, the ones that met the requirements were selected — the reasons for it being explained in a paragraph. There were, first, five finalists. Then only three. “It was Scarlett who decided, because she stayed on top of my letter all the time. Or, at least, that's what they told me… ”, explains Karen Wellen, the New Yorker who adopted the cat in 1996, on the other side of the Facebook video call connection. A freelance worker in the world of advertising, she had suffered a serious car accident - "I was not driving," he clarifies - a few years before. And that was precisely what he said in his letter. “I thought I was not going to have any option to adopt her. We are talking about thousands and thousands of letters, at a time when technology was not used as it is today. Few people had the Internet,mobile phones or printer… ”, he points out. A large adoption event was organized, attended by numerous media outlets. “I got to go live for the BBC! It was the first time we saw Scarlett's colors. Until then, all the images had been in black and white. ”, He recalls.
When Scarlett left the shelter, her face was bald with the memory of what she had experienced that night in Brooklyn. “He had a human look. She was a very expressive cat. She was very smart and very loving. He went out to receive all the visitors. Everybody could caress her, everybody could hold her… I think about her all the time ”Karen remembers to the point of emotion. "And he loved the cameras," he adds. In the more than twelve years that he lived with her, the house was turned into a film set on numerous occasions. “It aroused interest around the world. Especially in Japan ”. Several books on its history were also published.
Scarlett passed away on October 11, 2008. Her memory lives on in Karen's home and on her Facebook page, which has more than 23,000 followers. And, in parallel, another global story has grown, especially in Latin America. Social networks, in which there are numerous profiles that personify cats - those of the Spanish Kratos, the Chilean Sakura or the Colombian Tommy the monkey cat would be a good example - have extended the use of the term "Karen" for women who they live with cats and "Karen Macho", for men. With a subtle blend of the gifts of felinity — that is, nonchalance, self-righteousness, irony, and natural grace — the kitties protagonists of the videos have popularized the term Karen to speak — and criticize; and command— their owners.
“Some time ago, I began to realize that new followers were entering from Mexico, Chile, Colombia… I did not understand why. A follower wrote to me and explained it to me. I find it very funny. And more considering that in the United States Karen is little less than an insult, because she refers to an arrogant, aggressive, upper-middle class woman, tired of everything ... When I saw that it had a different meaning ... and so beautiful ... it made me a lot of hope".
Asked if she is considering adopting again, she confesses that she has doubts: “my day-to-day life is complicated now. In two years I have lost my parents, I have had some health problem ... I think that for now I will continue taking care of the street neighborhoods that I attend ”. Karen regularly updates Scarlett's Facebook page and uploads pictures of cats and other New York urban wildlife. Why not set out to conquer other social networks? “I try to keep it as simple as possible. Only Facebook. Not Instagram, not Twitter, not Tiktok. If I opened all those profiles, I wouldn't be able to get off the computer. I would need a second life ”. It would need, in particular, to be a cat. They have up to seven for something.
