What Does It Mean to Be a “Karen”? Karen Explains.

A “Karen,” according to a well-known internet meme, is a white, middle-aged woman with a sense of entitlement.

You can envision the Karen of the famous meme. She is white, with an asymmetrical short haircut and an air of peevish entitlement. Originally, the name referred to a woman in a shop who insists on speaking to the manager.

Writer Karen Geier first came across the meme on the social media site Twitter, where she saw it often. Now, she says, people often use “oh Karen” in a derogatory way for less-clear reasons. Some link the Karen meme to another meme from the movie Mean Girls, in which a character says, “Karen, you can’t just ask someone why they’re white.” Geier is quite liberal, so it irks her when someone...