What exactly is a 'Karen'?

Earlier this week Domino's Pizza had to issue an apology over a promotion it ran in Australia and New Zealand, offering free pizza to "nice Karens".

The company didn't pick out the name Karen at random. "Karen" has, in recent years, become a widespread meme referencing a specific type of middle-class white woman, who exhibits behaviours that stem from privilege.

To give some examples, "Karen" is associated with the kind of person who demands to "speak to the manager" in order to belittle service industry workers, is anti-vaccination, and carries out racist micro-aggressions, such as asking to touch black people's hair.

But a predominant feature of the "Karen" stereotype is that they weaponise their relative privilege against people of colour - for example, when making police complaints against black people for minor or even - in numerous cases - fictitious infringements.