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Karen Klein

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Oddity

The Resume

    (1944- )
    Karen Huff Klein
    Resides in Rochester, New York
    Former bus driver, bus attendant/monitor
    Employee of the Town of Greece's Central School District in Upstate New York
    Filmed in one of three videos being bullied on a school bus by four 7th graders from Greek Athena Middle School; video was posted to YouTube called 'Making the Bus Monitor Cry' (Jun. 18, 2012)
    Video has since gained over 9 million views (as of 2016)
    Video prompted investigations by school officials and local police; eventually resulted in the four students being suspended for a full academic year and obligated to do 50+ hours of community service (Jun. 29, 2012)
    Widespread outrage also resulted in an outpouring of support and donations, including from Indiego, GoFundMe, and Southwest Airlines
    Later established the Karen Klein Anti-Bullying Foundation, in conjunction with the GiveBack Foundation

Why she might be annoying:

    She could be played by Peggy Miley.
    The 10-minute 'Bus Monitor' video is enough to make a decent-minded person physically ill.
    The bullies in the video received death threats as soon it went viral (along with their families).
    Many questioned why she chose not to write the bullies up for their harassment (she reasoned it was the last week of school and that nothing would be done).
    Even more wondered why the hell the bus driver didn't put a stop to it or at least yell for the kids to shut up.
    She declined to accept two of the students' apologies because she doubted their sincerity (they weren't done in person).
    For all the donations and gifts that came her way, its saddening to think she wouldn't have received anything had her harassers not been so stupid as to post her public humiliation on the internet.
    Its not clear if the one-year suspension did any real good to change the bullies, but considering that one of them was caught three years later forcing a special needs student to drink urine from a toilet, short answer would be 'probably not.'

Why she might not be annoying:

    She had been widowed seventeen years before the incident.
    She drove a school bus for 20 years before being a bus monitor.
    She was repeatedly called 'a fat-ass' in the video.
    The kids made threats to urinate on her door and to stab her in the video.
    The kids made a crack about her living alone because her family killed themselves to avoid being around her (its unclear if they knew that her son killed himself ten years prior).
    The harassment on the bus got to be so bad that she could be seen with-holding tears (which one kid called sweat from missing her box of Twinkies).
    It wasn't her first interaction with the bullies, who had on one occasion knocked her hearing aid out.
    She had no idea the interaction was even recorded until she was called in by school officials and police to discuss it.
    She opted not to press charges against the kids, merely asking for an apology and to be assigned another bus route.
    She expressed shock when she learned on a Today Show appearance that Southwest Airlines offered to pay for a trip to Disneyland for a three-night visit.
    Within two months, the funds from donations totaled to over $500,000 enabling her to retire (something she wouldn't have been able to do for years otherwise).
    She didn't let the fame and wealth she got fro the experience go to her head, remaining in the same neighborhood and allotting 10% of the funds to the cause of Anti-Bullying.
    Her experience is a feel-good story a real happy ending.

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 6 Votes: 16.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 15 Votes: 6.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 13 Votes: 61.54% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 9 Votes: 11.11% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 23 Votes: 26.09% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 95 Votes: 63.16% Annoying