"Karen" caught on camera threatening fisherman
A woman in the elite suburb of Birchgrove has been caught on video threatening a fisherman at Balmain Rowing Club by calling the police after a fish he caught died.
Footage of the conflict was posted to YouTube on New Year's Eve and has been viewed almost 150,000 times.
The woman has been labelled a "Karen", a popular term to describe people who often complain.
The exchange, which occurred on a pier in Sydney's inner west, began when the young fisherman, who goes by the name Shroom on social media, was pulling on his fishing rod.
A caption on the film says: “Despite my best efforts to release a fish that I caught it ended up floating later”.
The middle-aged woman then walked up to Shroom and asks: “Why did you just kill that fish, and throw it back in and kill it?”
Shroom says “I didn’t kill it,” to which the woman replies “you did so”.
“I saw it and it’s floating, here,” she says, pointing past him.
Shroom: “I tried to release it, but it didn’t release. I did not kill it.”
Woman: “You did. I saw it here and it was flapping up and around. You’ve got a hide. Can I see your fishing licence please?”
The woman then proceeds to film him on her phone.
Shroom tells her he does have a fishing licence and that he will put her “on YouTube as well”, to which she says, “that’s okay”.
“There’s nothing wrong that I’ve done, absolutely nothing wrong. I know my rules and …,” Shroom says as he reels in his line.
The woman points and interrupts him as Shroom says, “that’s okay, that’s okay you can call the DPI now if you want, the Department of Primary Industries, you can give them a call”.
The woman nods, and adds “and Balmain Police” and walks off back down the pier.
He yells out at her, “you can do that”, to which she replies, “I will, I am, don’t you worry about it”.
Viewers flocked to the comments to praise Shroom on his calm and collected response.
“You handled that well mate. Some people just don’t have a clue,” one person said.
Another wrote: “Some people just don’t get it mate. Handled well – be polite, let them call police or whatever. You knew you were in the right so may as well keep fishing.”
Another posted: “Don’t understand what she’s trying to achieve … She’s gonna call the police & say ‘old mate was fishing & he released the fish but it died?!’ Cops will laugh at her.”
One commenter joked, “she was saltier than the fish you just released. And gutted she could not ask to speak to your manager”.