Yes, “masktard” really is a word. It began to appear online in March 2020 during the outbreak of the pandemic when people were ordered to wear masks to stop the spread of Covid-19. I’ve overheard the word in conversation.
Depending on one’s point of view, the term can have different meanings. It doesn’t appear in Google Trends or as an official entry in the dictionary, however, it does appear as an entry in the Urban Dictionary: “A person who doesn’t question authority and mindlessly complies to mandates (not laws) given by left authoritarian government, to the detriment of personal autonomy, freedom, jobs, livelihoods. Their own mantra of “my body, my choice” goes out the window, because their fear and devotion to compliance overrides your rights as a free citizen to choose for yourself. They insist you must do as they do or you’re a selfish grandma-killer, which betrays their faith in the mask’s effectiveness in the first place.
I was just going about my business and this masktard got in my face and lectured me about not wearing a mask” (asenath7766).
Dictionary.com has “masktard” listed as a suggested word: “Depending on your point of view, a person who is militant about wearing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, or a person who is reluctant to wear one” (plainname).
An article published for Westward.com informs readers that mean girls are most likely to use Covid-19 insults: “Welcome to 2020, when mean girls, and mean people in general who think they’re indestructible, feel free to insult those who insist on following public-health officials’ advice regarding an infection that’s killed more than 170,000 Americans to date. And indeed, the novel coronavirus has produced an explosion of new vocabulary specifically designed for this purpose…[concerning] ‘Masktard,’ when I first came across this slur, I couldn’t imagine a teen girl actually using it. A nanosecond later, I totally could” (Roberts). It remains to be seen whether the author’s personal experience is widespread among teenagers.
Masktard was the subject of a comedy video created by the J-Man Or Riot! channel on October 24, 2021. The video is called “Covidiots: The Everyday Adventures Of Maskhole & Masktard-Ep.1 Shaving.”
Social Media Trends as of May 17, 2022
Facebook #masktard: people are posting about this
Instagram #masktard: 41 posts
TikTok #masktard: 1777 views
YouTube #masktard: less than 100 videos and channels
Sources:
asenath7766. “Masktard.” Urban Dictionary. September 22, 2020. URL: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=masktard.
plainname. “Masktard.” Collins Dictionary. March 9, 2020. URL: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/submission/22773/masktard.
Roberts, Michael. “COVID-19 Insults Most Likely to Be Used by Mean Girls.” Westword. Denver Westword, LLC. August 19, 2020. URL: https://www.west
word.com/news/covid-19-insults-most-likely-to-be-used-by-teen-mean-girls-11772993.
The J-Man Or Riot! “Covidiots:The Everyday Adventures Of Maskhole & Masktard-Ep.1 Shaving.” YouTube. October 24, 2021. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mNL5hiktbI.