Katy Perry is a pop star, a former "American Idol" judge and, now, a space traveler.
She's also the internet's punching bag as of late.
Over the past few months, Perry has received a slew of online hate as she's rolled out her "143" album and Lifetimes Tour. Online mockery of the singer reached a fever pitch late last month following her participation in a Blue Origin space flight that also included Gayle King and Lauren Sánchez.
After initially keeping quiet about the ridicule, Perry broke her silence on how the mean comments have affected her in a late April Instagram post, writing: "When the 'online' world tries to make me a human Piñata, I take it with grace and send them love, cause I know so many people are hurting in so many ways and the internet is very much so a dumping ground for unhinged and unhealed."
"Please know I am ok, I have done a lot work around knowing who I am, what is real and what is important to me," Perry also wrote. "My therapist said something years ago that has been a game changer, 'no one can make you believe something about yourself that you don't already believe about yourself' and if I ever do have any feelings about it then it's an opportunity to investigate the feeling underneath it."
Perry is far from the only celebrity who seems to receive endless backlash. Mental health and pop culture experts say that, when a famous person likes Perry becomes a lightning rod of negativity, it's important to unpack why. Often, the answer has more to do with us than it does the celebrity.
"I'm glad that she brought up talking to her therapist, because that's probably going to help destigmatize mental health even more," psychotherapist Stephanie Sarkis says. "She actually had a good point, which is you have to stay true to yourself and whatever else is around you doesn't matter."
It's not just Perry who's been in the internet's crosshairs lately; Duchess Meghan, the actress formerly known as Meghan Markle, also can't seem to catch a break.
After the Netflix lifestyle show "With Love, Meghan" tanked with critics, the royal's latest venture into the public eye, an interview on the "The Jamie Kern Lima Show" podcast, got dealt similar mockery, for comments Meghan made about her personal life that some viewers characterized as cringe-worthy.
Rob Shuter, host of the podcast "Naughty But Nice with Rob Shuter" and a former celebrity publicist, says the internet often rotates which public figure it deems "the person of the moment that we're all allowed to hate." Before, it was Meghan; now, it's Perry. Sooner or later, he says, it's bound to be someone else.
"The Internet's really, really fast, and there's other people out there that will probably be punched very soon. It's hard to say why this happens," he adds. "It ultimately is about being overexposed, and it doesn't matter why or how you are overexposed."
Unfortunately, Shuter says, cyberbullying is just part of the deal when it comes to being famous. Some celebrities cope with it better than others.
"If you're thin-skinned and you don't like criticism with attention, it's a very dangerous time, because we're all critics now," he says. "We've all got opinions. We've all got social media. We're all warriors behind our keyboards. And so this is just part of being in the public eye now, and the really successful ones just know how to tune it out."
Usually when a celebrity gets a lot of hate, it isn't really about that particular celebrity but what they represent.
In Perry's case, Sarkis says, people likely aren't mad at her, but at wealth disparity more broadly. After all, the Blue Origin space flight sparked widespread criticism as an instance of the ultra-rich using their vast resources for something frivolous. One Instagram user described the flight as a "totally tone deaf moment" of a "bunch of rich people playing in space while the world is falling apart for the rest of us."
Some celebrities and brands even got in on the hate train too. In response to news Perry had returned from space, the official X account for Wendy's wrote, "Can we send her back." Representatives for Wendy's told Entertainment Weekly and People, "We always bring a little spice to our socials, but Wendy's has a ton of respect for Katy Perry and her out-of-this-world-talent."
When people hate on Perry, Sarkis says, what they're more likely doing is venting their frustrations with the economy and their own financial struggles.
"There's a large income disparity," Sarkis says. "She's living a life that most of us are not going to live, so it's difficult for people when they are just trying to make ends meet, especially with the increasing cost of groceries and everything else, to see someone that is living a life that is unattainable for the majority of us. And so some of that frustration, anger, I think, can come out, which is how people are dealing with it."
If you find yourself having strong, negative feelings about Perry or any celebrity, Sarkis recommends asking yourself why and seeing if there's a healthier, more productive way to channel those feelings.
"Sometimes we get involved in that stuff, because we don't want to deal with our daily stuff," Sarkis says. "Is it a little bit of a break from the stress to go after somebody else? And, if so, we need to look at what's going on in our lives."