Why Is Katy Perry So Embarrassing?

Culture Study Podcast

Anne Helen Petersen

Fashion & Beauty, Society & Culture, Arts

4.6 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At some point in late April, near the apex of the memes and jokes and ridicule of Katy Perry’s recent “women’s empowerment” trip to space, Melody and I wondered: is it even worth doing a Katy Perry episode? Do we have anything to say, other than wow, all of this — the new album, the tour visuals, the trip to SPACE, is hilariously bad? But then we asked Zach Stafford if he had anything to say, and when his response was an immediate YES, we decided to turn the episode over to your (as always, very insightful) questions and probe deeper. Yes, all of this recent promotional tour is cringe, and the album is not good — but cringey people with bad albums still get their singles played on the radio.

So what is it about Perry that makes her such a target in this moment? Join Zach and me as we try to figure it out (and decipher what’s happening with those Lifetimes costumes).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, it's Anne. So once a month, we pick an episode to make free for everyone. You'll get the whole show, including the Ask Ann Anything segment, which is usually just for paid subscribers. Other perks for paid subscribers include discussion threads for each episode, which, if you're part of culture study, you know how great that can be, and an ad-free experience. So if you want to support
0:22.4	the show and always get the full episode, head to culturesteadpod.substack.com and become a paid
0:28.4	subscriber. And if you already subscribe to the culture study newsletter, you get a huge discount
0:33.8	on the podcast. You can find a link to that in the substack post for this episode.
0:39.4	Also, today's episode is all about Katie Perry and we recorded it before news of her
0:44.1	official breakup with Orlando Bloom, but everything else still stands. Okay, thanks, everyone. Enjoy the show.
0:50.6	I'm going to tell you something right now. You are officially an astronaut. Thank you so much. How do you feel?
0:55.0	I feel super connected to love.
0:59.0	So connected to love.
1:00.0	I think this experience has shown me you never know how much love is inside of you, like
1:07.0	how much love you have to give, and how loved you are until the day you launch.
1:14.2	Gail shared with us the song that you sang when you got up there. What a wonderful world.
1:20.9	Why was that important to sing that particular song? I've covered that song in the past and obviously like my higher self is always steering the ship because I had no clue that one day I would decide to sing a little bit of that in space.
1:37.3	But I think that it's not about me. It's not about singing my songs. It's about a collective energy in there.
1:46.1	It's about us. It's about making space for future women and taking up space and belonging.
1:53.2	And it's about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it.
1:58.4	This is all for the benefit of Earth.
2:06.7	Hi, everyone. This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson. And I'm Zach
2:11.6	Saffert, co-host of Vibe Check. And so excited to be here. What has been your view of Katie Perry
2:16.5	over the span of her career?
2:18.4	Like, what's your evolution? Oh my goodness. Okay. So my hot take around Katie Perry, that is no
2:24.9	longer a hot take, is I did not realize that she was so famous at the peak of her power.
	...

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