If your parents named you Karen, the last few years have been rough.

Thanks to plenty of white, middle-aged, privileged women running wild in an age where everyone has a small video camera in their pockets, “Karen” has become an unavoidable meme. Karen had become such a phenomenon that when San Francisco passed a law criminalizing the racially motivated weaponizing of 911, they called it the CAREN Act.

Whereas the Karen meme found inspiration in the endless examples of white women abusing POC, the pandemic created a more pernicious strain, mask-hole Karens insisting they didn’t have to wear masks. Frontline store employees were already under increased stress from keeping customers safe with COVID protocols, product shortages, and the genuine risk of contracting a lethal disease at work. On top of all that, they had to battle Karens who insisted the printout from the internet in their hands entitled them to a mask-free shopping experience.