There is an extremely thorough (and long) video on this topic. I didn’t think I’d finish it or even watch half when I clicked it, but this guy is very informative and presents the info in a straightforward yet engaging way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpgqWZyAJtM
If you still noped out on that runtime, here is my less professional summary:
Ultimately it is about the race to the bottom of enshittification that we are experiencing in all aspects of life, and “art” transforming into “content” is chief among them. Perry’s built in audience is huge, yet one that is practically never pandered to: conservative black women. He’s not even particularly good at this and the way he does it is problematic, but it’s enough that he is attempting at all. He has realized over the years that it doesn’t matter if it’s good at all, his core audience will support him because they believe he supports them and their issues.
His rise to being ridiculously OP and successful is propped up by black excellence truthers even though they may or may not actually like his content. He has spun his truly impressive success into deals with streaming services and deteriorated from mediocre to literal slop that rapidly produces enough episodes to get into syndication immediately, because the deals are signed for 100 episodes. Since he writes, directs, produces, and often acts in all these projects, and because the unknown actors do not get a chance over several years/seasons to renegotiate their contracts even if the show gets popular, he takes the lion’s share of the profits. 2 lion’s shares really.
His influence quickly squashes criticism, and rising stars are usually choked out by the machine of Perry’s media empire, bringing the attention back to him. Obviously this also affects the quality of his work.
He also makes some fascinating points about how Perry…kinda CAN’T get more deep with it. To start looking deeper about the topics he discusses would entail stripping away the patriarchy of the black Christian church, or to point a finger towards the societal problems and cycles of abuse that cause the villains of his stories (usually black men) to act the way they do. And as a true believer in capitalism and hard work=success, he can’t do that. Making his characters deeper may require addressing the ways that he’s a queer man one way or another, whether he’s gay, gender fluid, or both, which he can’t do as the church has a don’t ask don’t tell policy. So he’s stuck in a pretend world of bootstraps, one dimensional villains, where dressing up as a woman for a minstrel performance is just funny and not misogynist, an indictment, or deeper look at him in any way, and one where the moral thing to do is not only forgiving the cycles of abuse, but buying into it as a strength.
If even that is Tl; Dr: it’s the story of every other billionaire, really. He makes his money off of exploiting others. Usually young black people who are hungry for success. Just sucks that he can’t have empathy since he literally started from the bottom like the people he manipulates, unlike every other billionaire.
Oh my God, you can’t just ask someone why they’re not white