I, for one, am shocked American Idol is still on the air. I am less shocked that Katy Perry is a tad bit of a drama queen.

Last night's episode featured 21-year-old Trey Louis from Santa Fe. Louis told the judges he narrowly survived the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting, which killed 8 students and 2 teachers: "A gunman walked into my school. I was in art room one, and he shot up art room two before he made his way to art room one. Lost a lot of friends."

Upon hearing this, Perry immediately broke down and put her head in her hands.

She then began screaming: "Our country has (expletive) failed us!" she shouted, through tears. "This is not OK! You should be singing here because you love music! Not because you had to go through that (expletive). You didn’t have to lose... friends. I hope that you remind people that we have to change, because, you know what? I’m scared too."

Katy's whole act comes off as highly performative. The segment concludes with an end card that reads, "FACTS. Firearms are the #1 leading cause of death for American children and teens." This is technically true, based on data from Americans aged 1-19 in 2020. Suicide accounted for 35% of the total gun deaths in the age group and homicide accounted for 65%. Patrick Carter, one of the authors of the research, told NPR, "Most commonly what makes the news is these horrific mass shootings, but they are a small aspect of the overall problem. The smallest portion are the mass shootings. ... it's these daily deaths that are occurring making up the totality of what we are seeing." Meaning, based on the data, it looks like America has a crime and suicide problem, and that's what's impacting our youth the most.

On the bright side, Louis had a great performance and seemed to be sent through on his merit - not because of his tragic backstory. Or Katy Perry's, er , impassioned speech.