Unpopular Opinion: Katy Perry Is Fucking Awesome
Sorry not sorry to all the haters —but not every bubble needs a cranky internet mob to pop it. (And ripping on female pop stars is nothing new. It does not make you cool and alternative.)
Hello honeys!
Okay, today’s fun-to-write letter to you goes like this: I genuinely love Corynne, who wrote the piece below. We worked together for many years at the dearly departed (or mercifully put out of its misery, depending who’s saying it) xoJane. Then we reunited after I started AJPT and realized I wanted her wisdom, her stabilizing care-taking presence, and her feisty way of getting whatever she wants, at this publication also. So lucky me, we are working/playing together again every day (and night) here. She is my Executive Editor and execute she does.
Corynne and I have a funny relationship. In some ways, we are very similar - and can battle because of it (I find I always battle more with people like me than the opposite), as you often see us doing in the comments. I think it's because we are both exceedingly codependent. Which also means that a story or project takes us a lot longer than it needs to, because of all the texts and slacks and emails and DMs and even extraneous emojis to make sure that the other one is FEELING good about the work that we're doing – oy. (This was Deputy Editor Charlie to me the other day - Charlie, who is thankfully a man of much fewer words: “Oh, I thought that thread was going to be really important because it had 40 messages in it.” Me: “No, that's just me and Corynne talking about a comma.”) Everything I’m saying here is strictly my opinion and theory about our relationship - I haven't even talked to Corynne about it, or my diagnosis of her as codependent, so she can disagree with me on that in the comments too.
(This reminds me of when I hosted live TV —and especially radio— if a good conversation started before we went on, we would say "Save it for the air" and shut up so that the fresh, raw, in-the-moment reactions were part of the show. Addressing this kind of inside stuff with writers and staff in the comments is similarly exposing and I'm sure there are good reasons to hate me for that policy.)
Anyway, in many other ways, my Executive Editor and I are very very different. As evidenced in a supremely superficial way by this post today.
I hope you read it and enjoy it, and I hope you take my side in comments whenever Corynne and I fight forevermore. Love you and have a happy, happy, fulfilling day, whatever you believe.
Xox Jane
Yes, I know this column is called “Unpopular Opinion.” And that this is actually, as I found out, a very Popular Opinion. (I know it because I am the one who coined Unpopular Opinion during my xoJane days. [You sure did! And you reminded me of it here at AJPT, so I could resurrect it. All hail! -Jane])
Typically, I would come here and rant about a less-commonly-held opinion. Such as, “Morning people are not better than us night owls” or “Smoking a couple of cigarettes a year is so not a big deal” [both of which she believes. -Jane] and call it “Unpopular.”
However! Because of what I witnessed on Monday night, I think this particular opinion is, actually, quite popular. Not that you would know it if you ever read absolutely anything online. Or scrolled Instagram or Tik Tok. But, sorry-not-sorry to all you haters: Katy Perry Is Fucking Awesome and her sold-out show of screaming fans was all the proof I needed.
Is Katy Perry awesome as a person? I don’t know. (Also: I don’t care!)
Sure, there was that nun whose dying wish was for Katy Perry to refrain from buying the convent she was living in. But after reading just a little further, it seems the collective anger should be directed towards the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which declared the nun held no rights to that property and subsequently sold it. (And it’s not Katy’s fault that the nun dropped dead in court!)
People also deeply dislike Katy’s choice of lady friends. And I don’t know that I would choose Lauren Sanchez and Megan Markle as my BFFs… but what the hell do I care? I don’t have to hang out with them! (Plus, you haters know that if Megan Friggin’ Markel [her official palace name] asked you to come over for a Montecito Mom’s night, you’d be running full speed with a bottle of Whispering Angel in each hand.)
And then there was the big one.
On April 14, she boarded the Blue Origin for a faux feminist trip to space. And proceeded to kiss the ground when she returned. Completely gross and out of touch? Yes! It was certainly ridiculous. But do I HATE her for it? Like enough to take my time to publicly mock her? Not really! Actually …not at all. [Um, I did. -Jane]
Because when I think of Katy Perry, I don’t think of her eccentric and controversial life choices. I think of my daughter and her friends when they were four years old singing: “You held me down, but I got up / Already brushing off that dust/ You hear my voice, you hear that sound/ Like thunder, gonna shake the ground.”
And I think of my son, who, since Kindergarten, has loved singing “Firework” and “Dark Horse,” belting out the tunes from the backseat on long car rides. I think of the summer of 2009 when some friends and I drove to Montreal from New York, and “I Kissed A Girl” by some chick named Katy Perry that nobody had ever heard of played on the radio about 600 times. By the time we arrived in Canada, I knew every word. (Still do.)
“She did something dumb, yes. But did she deserve all the vitriol the entire internet can hold? It didn’t seem to matter. Because that is what she got.”
Two years ago, there was another long car ride when we moved from Brooklyn to the suburbs of Chicago. We had the best summer here …even if it seemed every person we knew besides us (yes, we have lots of privileged white people in our orbit) was either going to or had just been to the Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert.
I was an original Swiftie 4 Eva. I played her first album, “Taylor Swift,” on repeat (along with “Fearless”) after college. And everyone made fun of me and the cool girls at work called me basic and rolled their eyes when I played “Red.” Hating Taylor was in. So it was a truly an exceptional kind of feeling watching those same former haters, along with a bunch of finance bros who don’t even know her music, go to Eras. And take their kids! Multiple times!! So happy for them!!!
And every time an offspring of one of those Suddently Swifty’s declared, “I’m going to Eras!!” my kiddos would just deadpan respond: “Cool. I would rather see Katy Perry.”
So, when late last year it was announced Katy Perry was coming to Chicago — finally!— we jumped. (For joy, and our good fortune. My husband worked in the music industry for a long time and scored us four tickets that didn’t equal a mortgage payment.) We talked about it for months. Who cared about missing Eras? (Still me! I was crushed and jealous AF! But I don’t matter.)
We were going to see the icon of all icons, according to the only people who do matter.
Then, April 14 came and went, and in the weeks between Blue Origin and the concert, the Katy hateration nation grew an army. The absolute rage towards her poured out of every corner the internet, seemingly out of nowhere, like the zombies in The Last Of Us. It was everywhere.
[Sorry about this paywall here but it means that if you want to rail against this opinion in the comments - please! - you have to be a paid subscriber. It’s not my rule - it’s a Substack thing. -Jane]