I wrote about what the Karen meme tells us about the awkward status of white women, particularly among people who consider themselves progressive. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/karen-meme-coronavirus/615355/

PS. However it started, it's pretty hard to argue that the word hasn't become a faux-progressive version of "stupid" or "nag", allowing loads of people to rehash sexist jokes which would have seemed hokey in the 1990s.