Hey guys, do you ever feel like a plastic bag? Has anyone you love ever felt like a plastic bag? Can you even fathom, as a sentient being, what feeling like a plastic bag might be like? Or, perhaps a better question: Can you imagine opening a song meant to be an earnest empowerment anthem with a question like that? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, then you might actually be Katy Perry.
Let’s get one thing straight right off that bat: Katy Perry is a firework—a wildly successful pop star with a huge string of inescapable, catchy hit singles that speak to her ability to write music and select songs that connect with millions of fans. She’s also, like so many other singers today, sitting at the top of an incredibly lucrative empire of branded consumer goods, and often takes an ownership stake in other products she shills, which nets her even more cash. Which means she’s a savvy businesswoman, too. She's also a philanthropist and a die-hard Hillary supporter.
And yet…she can be pretty embarrassing, too.
Maybe you don’t think it’s that bad that she launched her career with back-to-back songs that were homophobic and then queer-baiting (you should). Maybe you don’t mind that she has never met a cringey costume she doesn’t like, and spent an entire album cycle wearing so many fruit-inspired looks on the red carpet and music videos that she is known in China as “Fruit Sister.” Maybe you don’t care that she has a song called “Peacock” with a hook that consists entirely of her requesting to have a look at some guy’s “peacock, cock, cock” over and over. Maybe none of those humiliating facts alone change your opinion about Perry, but taken as a whole, it’s hard to deny that while she may be one of the most successful pop stars of all time, she’s also one of the most mortifying.
In her latest of faux-pas, KP recently told a Danish reporter in Yeezys and a scrunchie that she relates to the shrugging emoji. “I’m a person that is constantly learning and changing and evolving and applying everything in real time that I learn,” she said, as the Danish reporter nodded knowingly. “But I live under a microscope, and everybody’s like, ‘Wait, wait, wait!’ And I’m like, ‘But, I’m learning, can’t I apply what I learn?”
Yes, Katy Perry, you can! In the spirit of evolution and self-improvement, let’s add some of these embarrassing moments to your list of mistakes best left in the past. And after we’re done, maybe you can return the favor?
She covered “Big Pimpin’” in concert.
She also covered Jay and Kanye for the BBC.
She has worn grills at least twice.
Let’s talk about all of that cultural appropriation, actually.
Her “SNL” dance moves were unsettling at best.
Her repeated public requests for an apology from Taylor Swift have been ignored.
She didn't know what “nimble” means.
She frequently employs a fake English accent.
She uses slang like she's a corny math teacher.
