Katy Perry’s Blue Origin Spaceflight Sparks Memes, Mockery, and Mass Backlash
What was intended to be an empowering leap for women into the cosmos turned into a crash landing on social media for Katy Perry and the rest of the Blue Origin crew.
On Monday, pop icon Katy Perry joined broadcast legend Gayle King, Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez, and three other trailblazing women for a highly publicized Blue Origin mission — making it the first all-female spaceflight since 1963. The crew included astronaut and bioastronautics researcher Amanda Nguyen, NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and filmmaker Kerriann Flynn.
The 10-minute and 21-second suborbital journey, which was heavily hyped as a symbolic triumph for women in aerospace, quickly faced backlash online — and not just from anonymous trolls, but from fellow celebrities and media voices.
Instead of celebration, the flight ignited a cultural firestorm.
Comedian Amy Schumer and actors Olivia Wilde and Olivia Munn slammed the mission as tone-deaf and performative. Munn, in a televised segment, branded the trip “gluttonous,” while Wilde shared a meme of Perry’s re-entry moment and snarked:
“Billion dollars bought some good memes I guess.”
Their criticisms resonated with many online, where Perry’s act of dramatically kissing the ground upon landing sparked more eye-rolls than applause. One user wrote:
“The astronauts were stuck in space for 286 days… Katy Perry after 10 minutes in space: Oscar-worthy scene incoming.”
Even fast-food titan Wendy’s couldn’t resist joining in. Known for its savage social media presence, Wendy’s replied to Perry’s landing with a brutal, deadpan tweet:
“Can we send her back?”
It didn’t stop there — they followed up with a reference to her hit song:
“I kissed the ground and I liked it.”
Critics also pointed out the irony: while this celebrity-packed flight was marketed as inspirational, actual women engineers and scientists at NASA have been quietly laid off or erased from the spotlight.
One viral post summed it up sharply:
“Crazy how Katy Perry and Lauren Sanchez going to ‘space’ for 10 minutes is supposed to ‘inspire women,’ while real NASA women are getting fired.”
The mission — hailed as a moment of “female finesse” by participants — was widely seen as another instance of privilege masquerading as progress.
Perry sang “What a Wonderful World” mid-flight, adding a cinematic touch to the short voyage. Her suit featured a firework symbol, nodding to her 2010 anthem “Firework,” while Sánchez sported a fly — a reference to her children’s book The Fly Who Flew to Space.
Model Emily Ratajkowski joined the digital uproar on TikTok, labeling the flight “disgusting” and questioning its purpose. She echoed a sentiment shared by many: that the mission felt more like an elaborate influencer stunt than a meaningful milestone for women in STEM.
From a PR standpoint, Blue Origin may have shot for the stars, but ended up landing in a crater of memes, criticism, and viral mockery.
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