From 2002 to 2022, babies named Karen declined in a smooth, dignified arc while golf cart emergency room injuries grew at an inverse r of -0.9742. The hypothesis that fewer Karens reduces golf cart accidents is left as an exercise for the reader. Golf cart ER visits have grown to over 17,000 annually in the US, driven primarily by residential community use, while the name Karen declined from several thousand annual registrations toward statistical near-extinction. Both trends have, in their own way, surprised the medical community.
Golf cart injuries have grown substantially as golf carts migrated from courses to retirement communities, resorts, college campuses, and private properties — environments with fewer safety norms and more mixed-traffic conditions. The growth tracks the expansion of golf cart ownership in Sun Belt retirement communities, which grew rapidly as baby boomers retired. The Karen name decline follows the standard lifecycle of a generational name, accelerated by the meme-driven cultural devaluation of the name post-2017. Both trends are demographic in origin — one tracking boomers aging into retirement, the other tracking millennials choosing names for their children.
The universe of coincidental negative correlations is infinite, and our ability to construct plausible narratives connecting them is essentially boundless. This is not a feature of the data. It is a feature of us.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “Babies named Karen in the US” vs “Golf cart ER injuries” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
