BAD TIME TO BE A KAREN — JUST DON’T BEHAVE LIKE ONE

is coming for you. In fact, she’s talking to your manager right now.

Armed with a “don’t mess with me” haircut and an unshakeable belief she is right, Karen is here to put you straight.

Karen wields her privilege at the expense of others – particularly the waiter who put the wrong dressing on her salad.

Karen doesn’t think social distancing measures should come between her and a blow wave or a seat at her favourite restaurant. Her favourite line is: “I’ll need to speak to your manager”.

Karen used to be just a name, but now it’s a byword for bigotry and middle-class elitism.

It was the most popular girls’ name in Australia in 1965, which means there’s a whole lot of 55-year-old women wondering why their mundane “mum name” is suddenly featuring in the headlines.

“Not happy” Jans are breathing a sigh of relief.

Karens are less than ecstatic about their new status as suburban snobs, bullies and racists.

Sporting a name that was popular but never fashionable, they have spent decades flying under the radar.

Karens are the second-best friends in movies. The librarians. The soccer mums.

When they were young they were briefly hot, but only because they went by Kazz.

Karens are the girls from school who stole boys called Darren from girls called Sharon and Janet who ended up with Garry and Warren instead. (In other words, Kazz stole Dazz from Shazz and Jazz, who ended up with Wazz and Gazz.)

Thirty years later, Karen is successful in a middlemanagement kind of way. She remembers birthdays and hides from cameras in her bathing suit.

So how on earth has Karen ended up the moniker for some of our generation’s most hated women?

A name that attracts thousands of fans on a Facebook page called “The Karens are at it again”? Or on Reddit where millions have joined the “F--k you Karen” page?

The Karen phenomenon is widely attributed to a Dane Cook cartoon which talks about the “one person in every group of friends that nobody likes”.

“They keep them there to hate their guts,” the cartoon says. “Karen is always a douchebag.”

(If you disagree, that means you’re the person nobody likes.)

It’s a lot of blame to place on a name.

I asked my friends called Karen – and there are many of them – what they think of it all.

Most said they’re not happy, while others said they knew they had to “suck it up for the greater good”.

“I’m guessing it will blow over and Nicole or Susan will be next,” said one.

My real name is Susan, which is why I am sympathetic to the plight of Karens.

If your name is Karen, bear in mind that it could be worse.

One friend knows someone whose first name is Corona.

I’ve got another friend whose daughter is called Isis.