Journalist and television personality Gayle King joined a group of high-profile women on April 14—including Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sánchez—on a very brief Blue Origin space flight. But before liftoff, King's visibly fearful and unamused "let's get this over with" expression instantly became a reaction meme. While the other women on the suborbital flight looked thrilled to ring the ceremonial bell, King's face was worth a thousand words.
Her deadpan expression has since gone viral, sparking jokes about space tourism and just generally not being in the mood, with people writing comments like, "Gayle King is all of us on a Monday."
Meme basics
- Meme/trend creator: Organic on social media
- Meme type: Reaction meme, text meme, reaction/screen-cap
- First appearance: Monday, April 14, 2025
- Origin source: X (formerly Twitter)
- Used to convey: Resigned acceptance of dealing with the world at large or events that the poster knew to expect but didn’t want to deal with.
- Peak popularity: April 14, 2025
Gayle King memes take off
Gayle King memes began circulating after people saw her dejected and focused expression on camera before the launch. She walked up to the bell and barely seemed to notice she was ringing it before moving on to get into the rocket. Memes immediately cropped up as social media users remarked how the CBS Mornings cohost didn’t seem like she particularly wanted to be on the celebrity-filled flight.
Some folks said that Gayle King was everyone on Monday mornings, while others joked about how she was probably relieved that the flight only lasted 11 minutes from start to finish.
Gayle King wasn't exactly thrilled to go to space—and it showed
Public fascination with celebrity space flights is not groundbreaking. They aren’t conducting scientific experiments, but are participating in what has been called "space tourism." In that way, King’s memes tapped into broader conversations about billionaire space tourism, spectacle vs. science, and the media’s obsession with firsts.
As noted in an opinion piece on MSNBC, space tourism is only for those who can afford it and is out of reach for the vast majority of people. This flight was made up of only women, but critics see it as more of a publicity stunt than a step forward for feminism.
"Monday’s 'historic' mission is nothing less than a show of identity politics thinly cloaking the American capitalist impulse of the 'more is better' mentality," the article noted.
Other women on the flight with King and Perry were former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, Lauren Sánchez, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
More Gayle King memes:
King addresses her unamused reaction
King responded to the social media reaction to her expression at a news conference after the flight.
"At that moment I was so afraid, I just wanted to get into my seat because I just wanted to let the training kick in," she said. "I just wanted to get inside the capsule and sit down. So the process of walking up there was a little daunting for me," she said.
The journalist shared a comment given to her by a German friend. He told her, "Once you get there, you’re going to feel like it’s sex with the gods."
She also said she was proud of herself and the other women aboard the flight. "I never in a gazillion years thought I could do this," King said.
It seems that King sees the humor in the memes, however, as she has changed her Instagram avatar to her now-memed expression while boarding the rocket.
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