‘That doesn’t inspire little girls’—Katy Perry’s 11-minute Blue Origin space trip becomes meme and message disaster

Pop superstar Katy Perry boarded Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket for an 11-minute suborbital flight last week—and instantly became the internet’s favourite punching bag. Promoted as a “step forward for women in space”, the mission has instead triggered a heated backlash over climate hypocrisy, performative feminism, and celebrity indulgence in the name of empowerment.

While the flight was framed as inspirational, many weren’t buying it.

One X user wrote, “When my daughter was 13 she designed, built, launched + retrieved a near-space cube satellite… So forgive me if I’m not at all impressed with Katy Perry’s 11-minute-makeup-perfecting-selfie-op space trip. That doesn’t inspire little girls. Real science inspires little girls.”

Another slammed the narrative of female progress, pointing out the irony: “Crazy how Katy Perry and Lauren Sanchez going to ‘space’ for 10 minutes is supposed to ‘inspire women’, but the women who already worked at NASA are checks notes getting fired and getting their bios removed from the site.”

Environmentalists joined in too. “Actually insane that Katy Perry went to space which has the same carbon footprint as someone’s entire lifetime in 11 minutes and came back and said ‘we have to take care of Mother Nature’ LIKE YEAH THE FIRST STEP IS NOT TAKING A ROUND TRIP TO SPACE????” one user posted.

Meanwhile, the internet’s meme-makers wasted no time. A still from former boyband One Direction’s Drag Me Down music video circulated with the caption: “Katy Perry was the 1st pop singer to go to space” you guys forgot about this divas”, referencing the band’s space-themed music video.

Another posted an image of ‘The Boys’ character Homelander watching grimly, captioned, "The 2 astronauts who were stuck in space for 9 months watching Katy Perry kiss the ground after being in space for 10 minutes."

What was meant to be a powerful symbol of inspiration has instead become a symbol of tone-deaf elitism to many. As critics continue to call out the carbon-heavy joyride and its surface-level messaging, Perry’s silence has only amplified the noise.

In a world where real scientists are being laid off, climate warnings are more urgent than ever, and space is still largely inaccessible, Perry’s trip may say less about empowerment—and more about how out of touch empowerment messaging can be when launched from 100,000 feet above reality.