Lady Gaga is all over the internet. In fact the term lady gaga concerts or lady gaga tickets, is searched over 13 and a half million times a month according to Google. That doesn't even count any of the other 100's for search terms used. Think about it. That is more than the population of the US's two largest cities combined. In fact, the equivalent of New York City, Los Angeles, and half of Chicago are searching for that one term every month. Over the course of a year it adds up to is 6 trillion. That's right, 6 trillion searches for one search term.
So why do fans love her? Search for an answer to that on the internet and you get two camps. Of course there must be those who don't care one way or another; but of those who comment, they either love her or hate her. Those that hate her say things like 'she's a one hit wonder', (that guy hasn't been paying attention), or "she's a freak, a monster". The majority of the criticisms are not focused on her music or even her style of music. You won't find criticisms about her concerts, or her lifestyle or much of anything she's said. She is criticized for her clothes. People say some pretty nasty things I can't repeat here and they are based on perceptions surrounding how she dresses so why would anybody want to dress like Lady Gaga?
To answer that let's look first at why Lady Gaga fans love her. Of course it's a complicated question but I see one thing stand out. It's about passion; Lady Gaga passion.
Lady Gaga is passionate and committed to her art.
Those fans who love her, strangely enough, love her for her music, certainly, but they love her also for her courage to express herself in her art in spite of the criticism. To fans, her clothes are a reflection of her passion, her art, and her bravery. They see it as evidence that she will risk being called names to be true to the art. She has said over and over that the music, the performances, and her wardrobe are part of the art form; its performance art and she will not back down from that.
"I am focused on the work. I am constantly creating. I am a busy girl. I live and breathe my work. I love what I do. I believe in the message. There's no stopping. I didn't create the fame, the fame created me."
~~Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga is passionate and committed to her fans.
Along with that commitment to her work, she demonstrates a passion for her fans that we don't always see. If you watch scenes where she is interacting with her fans you often see her hugging, kissing and sometimes crying as she is touched by their love for her. She doesn't seem to have distanced herself from them; in fact she goes out of her way to connect via an online presence with blogging and on twitter. In blogs I've been on several people have said that when they have started to follow her on Twitter, she started following them. Now, admittedly, she has a staff, but there is no question about who is in charge of her career and every detail of what goes on around her.
I have my own personal example of that. Without doing any research whatsoever, I started a little costume site for Lady Gaga costumes. It never occurred to me that there were only two costumes for me to promote. I decided I wasn't going to let that stop me; I already had spent $10.00 on the domain name! I spent hours and hours on research about her style, used pictures of her and found videos of how to do the makeup and put everything together along with products for wigs and things with suggestions on how to put it together. I went to her site and joined the forums for the people going to concerts in each city and posted about the site. A couple of weeks later I received a comment from ladygaga.com that said "Oh my gosh! It's so great that my fans would like to replicate my look! Don't forget to put on a pokerface and just dance!" I have to admit I was pretty blown away.
I had set up a profile on the site and a couple of days after the comment I received an email saying they liked the site and that Lady Gaga was "friending" me. Now I'm not a starry eyed teenager. I have grandkids older than she is, but was I impressed? Sure I was. Who does that? If I wasn't a fan before (and I was), that act, that attention to detail to connect, is why fans love Lady Gaga.
She has also expressed her desire, her goal, to encourage people to be who they are and be great at it. We've had stars tell us to be who we are but in the past the "being who you are" usually included more self-destructive behavior then dressing up. Lady Gaga says she wants her fans to be who they are AND be good at it too.
"I used to walk down the street like I was a (bleep) star..I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be-and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth"
~~Lady Gaga
"My new album that I'm creating, which is finished pretty much, was written with this new instinctual energy that I've developed getting to know my fans. They protect me, so now it's my destiny to protect them."
~~Lady Gaga
As far as those who criticize her here's what she has to say about that:
"When they start stating that you have extra appendages, you have to assume that they're unable to destroy you."
~~Lady Gaga
So why do her fans want to look like her? Wanting to look like Lady Gaga is a form of flattery; a means of expressing that they admire her so much they want to wear the very same Lady Gaga costumes that have made her a target. They want to be brave too.
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