This week, many, many celebrities have taken the time to make statements about what happened Monday night at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
That night, a man named Salman Abedi set off a bomb in the venue, killing himself and 22 others.
Over 50 people were injured, and countless others were undoubtedly traumatized by the attack. Abedi’s brother has been arrested in connection to the horrific events, and ISIS has taken responsibility.
Details are still coming out about the bombing, but the basics are that at least one man plotted to kill numerous teenagers and children during what should have been a happy event.
The whole thing is just too horrific for words, but still, people are trying.
And Katy Perry is one of those people.
In an interview, Katy said “I think the greatest thing we can do now is unite as people, as fan bases, all of it.”
“Whatever we say behind people’s backs, the Internet can be a little bit ruthless as far as fan bases go but I think the greatest thing we can do is just unite and love on each other.”
“No barriers, no borders,” she said, “we all just need to co-exist.”
It’s a harmless statement, right? Katy obviously means well, and she’s just trying to spread a simple message of love and peace — and she’s specifically talking about fan bases here, too.
But to some people, her words were really and truly offensive.
A writer for The Blaze theorized that with this point of view, Katy is “putting at least some of the blame on the people who were blown up.”
“The terrorist was led to strap on an explosive vest stuffed with nails because the world has failed to ‘unite,"” the article read.
“It was not his own decision and his own wickedness that caused him to massacre kids; it was our society with its borders and its barriers and its intolerance.”
The writer criticizes Katy for talking about unity when she couldn’t even stay united with her former husband, Russell Brand, and for saying “no barriers, no borders” when she hires bodyguards.
Fox & Friends’ Michelle Malkin also commented on Katy’s “bodyguards and security systems,” adding that she has “no sense of reality.”
Katy actually responded to Michelle on Twitter, writing “The media has edited my words out of context, I was talking about online fan culture and how we must unite now.”
Speaking of Twitter, many users have also been slamming Katy for her remarks — one person wrote “Katy Perry lectures that we need to co-exist with ISIS but she can’t manage to co-exist with Taylor Swift.”
Which, to be fair, is pretty good.
But the point is that it doesn’t make any sense that all these people think Katy Perry is going to give a thoughtful, intelligent statement on national security.
She made her statement, which wasn’t even about the world at large, it was about pop stars and their fans, and it didn’t hurt anyone.
Let’s save the outrage, just this once.
