The internet's latest meme is pretty horrible.

Taking off on Reddit and infiltrating social media, "boomer remover" has become a coronavirus catchphrase among younger generations, reported Hannah Sparks for The New York Post.

That's because people over 60 are at greater risk of becoming ill than younger folks who don't have underlying health conditions (those who do have preexisting conditions are also at higher risk). Coronavirus risk increases with age, making people in their 80s and 90s at the highest risk.

These facts have given some millennials and Gen Z a false sense of confidence that the coronavirus is only a threat to baby boomers — hence the trending #BoomerRemover.

As Rana Foroohar for Financial Times explains, "Young people calling the coronavirus a 'boomer remover' may reflect the general lack of empathy in society these days, but it may also mirror the free-floating political anger that the current generation has for their elders."

"This is a joking reaction to our frustration with boomers as a generation," one Twitter user wrote. "We've been told we're 'too' sensitive, dismissed on climate change, constantly told we're entitled."

On the flip side, some millennials are using the "Boomer Remover" trend not out of insensitivity, but to get their parents to stay home, reported Sparks. The coronavirus is scary to the millennial generation because it shows them how old their parents are. Business Insider's Hayley Peterson spoke to several millennials who said they are concerned about their parents' health and frustration in trying to convince them to stay inside.

"I had to tell my 70 yr old mum that they're calling this pandemic the Boomer Remover before I could convince her to cancel all of her boomer cluster activities," tweeted Twitter user Kaya Wilson.

Young people can get sick too

Young people aren't as invincible as they think they are.

"One of the worst messaging errors of this event has been the overemphasis on it being a problem mainly for the elderly," tweeted Twitter user Bodie B, when retweeting the account of a 36-year-old nurse without preexisting conditions infected with coronavirus.

Up to 20% of people hospitalized with the coronavirus in the US are young adults between ages 20 and 44, according to a CDC report issued last Wednesday, which analyzed about 2,500 coronavirus patients in the US. Consider the 26-year-old who works out six days a week and has no prior immune or respiratory conditions, but was recently hospitalized for coronavirus, according to her account for The New York Times.

But just because a young adult isn't hospitalized — or feeling ill — doesn't mean they're not infected with coronavirus. They could be an asymptomatic carrier, meaning they don't present any symptoms and therefore could unknowingly infect more high-risk people.

"It's important that we all work together, especially younger people, millennials," Seema Verma, administrator at Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator, said. "They may feel healthy. They may feel like if I get this virus it's not going to be that big of a deal, it's just going to be like the flu, but the reality is they can contribute to the spread."