The internet has a name for her: Karen.
She’s the neighborhood busybody who is always complaining, posting passive-aggressive rants on social media, whose frequent diatribes are dripping with righteous indignation and fueled by a sense of moral superiority.
We all know this person (who, despite the name, can be male or female). Indeed, we’ve all probably been a Karen on occasion.
Now, here we are, in the midst of a global pandemic, and the impulse to be one all of the time is overwhelming, but also troubling.
To be fair, it’s a strange time. Local and federal authorities, health experts and businesses are inundating us with the message that the power to save (and threaten) lives is within our hands, based entirely on how far apart we stand in line or even how often we go to the grocery store. That may or may not be true.