Karens have been mocked for being anti-vaccine and pro–“Can I speak to your manager?” They’re obsessed with banal consumer trends and their personal appearance, and typically criminally misguided, usually loudly and with extreme confidence.

Their defining essence is “entitlement, selfishness, a desire to complain,” according to Heather Suzanne Woods, a meme researcher and professor at Kansas State University. A Karen “demands the world exist according to her standards with little regard for others, and she is willing to risk or demean others to achieve her ends.”

Karens have gained notoriety in this crisis in part because the joke can be bitingly funny, but also because no meme better captures the fraught feelings of the moment. With inconsistent guidance from political leaders and conflicting social-distancing mandates among states, Americans are navigating how and when to police one another’s behavior. Mocking Karens has given people on platforms such as Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook a shared language to encourage measures that benefit the public. But it can be problematic, too—and not just because of its crudeness. Many people now tossing around the meme seem unaware of its roots as a pointed critique of structural inequalities, even as black Americans are overrepresented in county- and state-level coronavirus infection and death reports. “Karen began as a Black meme used to describe white women who tattle on Black kids’ lemonade stands,” the community organizer Gwen Snyder tweeted last week. “White boys stole it and turned it into code for ‘bitch.’”