So, You’ve Been Cast as the Delta Variant

An ongoing meme personifies a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus as a saboteur.

When Spencer Pratt, a star of MTV’s “The Hills,” saw he was cast as the Delta variant of the coronavirus in a meme spreading across social media, he thought it was entertaining but also misleading. “It’s fun for you to be a meme, but if they rewatch the show they’ll really see who the Delta variant is,” Mr. Pratt said in a text message on Thursday. The meme — “my fall plans” vs. “the Delta variant” — pairs a picture of a fun, carefree or even neutral scene (fall plans) with an image of a saboteur (the Delta variant). In Mr. Pratt’s case, the fall plans are the ongoing best friendship of his former castmates Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag (then his girlfriend, now his wife); what makes him the Delta variant is that a feud involving him caused the two women to break ties.