Why Millennials Are Going Gaga

| Jan 14, 2010 | Lifestyle | 17 comments

lady gagaStefani Germanotta, better known as Lady GaGa, has awed millennials with her outlandish performances, unorthodox fashion statements, and infectious verses. With the recent debut of her EP, “The Fame Monster,” and the tour accompanying it, “ The Monster Ball,” GaGa rules the world.

What is it about this slender blonde that has everyone so gaga?Millennials have seen countless buxom beauties garner success by oozing sex appeal and confidence, but nothing has ever come up the way that Lady GaGa has. She has given a voice to the outside millennial.

Her first album, “The Fame,” had four number ones, leading her to collect multiple MTV Video Music Awards (Best New Artist, Video of the Year, and seven others), five Grammy nominations, and the respect of her pop star peers.  Her latest video for her song “Bad Romance” has been viewed over 30 million times on YouTube, and her tour has sold out across the country.

Her musical success and subsequent frenzy of media coverage and fanatical hype are the archetypal story of the underdog staging the ultimate upset. Known to her high school peers as an outcast and a freak, Stefani made the transformation into the fierce Lady GaGa and never looked back.  She is inspiring to all of us who have felt marginalized for one reason or another. This has not only fueled her rising star, but also made it shine brighter than those of her peers.  We can relate to her, and for that, she is who and what she is today.

She’s funky. She’s weird. She’s different. She’s who we all are on the inside. Unless you were a cheerleader (a thin one) or a mildly attractive quarterback, chances are you felt out of place in high school. Whether you were called a freak, a basket case, a fag, or a fat ass to your face or behind your back, secondary education, and everything leading up to it, is a playground for ostracizing as many of your peers as possible.

In fact, various studies prove how frequently and easily misunderstood individuals are labeled as social pariahs. According to her article, Punking and bullying: strategies in middle school, high school, and beyond Seattle University researcher Debby A. Phillips claims that 47% of American high school students reported being bullied. That is almost half of the population!

Enter GaGa.

Unlike Britney Spears, who was the typical popular cheerleader in high school, or Beyonce, who rose to fame before her sweet sixteen, GaGa has felt lonely and ostracized.

Her music, the most important factor in a pop star’s career, is revolutionary and progressive. We have never heard a sound like GaGa’s in the mainstream, and it can best be described with the lyrics of her debut single “Just Dance”: “Half-psychotic, sick, hypnotic.” Heavily electronic, her music is a blend of everything we’ve heard in the music industry and nothing we’ve ever heard before. She does her predecessors justice: she doesn’t just draw from greats such as Queen and Madonna; she takes music to a whole new level by fusing audible power, peace, and sexuality.

Yes, her music is great. But the waters of her success run deeper. It’s GaGa’s early struggles and her resistance to oppression that has won us over. Millennials are tired of seeing the prim and proper cheerleader go from a girl to a sexually liberated woman. GaGa has always gone against the grain. She has always been sexually liberated. She has always been a freak. And we find that refreshing because many millennials have felt like outsiders.

At the Monster Ball, GaGa celebrates the freak in all of her fans. From the very beginning of her concert, she makes it clear that she tours because she wants to create an environment where everyone can feel free and release their inner “monsters.”

During “Alejandro,” the soothing, Ace of Base-like ode to her Latin fans, she drives the crowd wild as she simulates sexual acts and pauses in the middle of the song to give a monologue.

The music and the cheering cease. All that can be heard is her voice, quiet, calm, and warm: “If you are ever feeling lonely, just listen to this song. Because somewhere out there, I’ll be lonely, too.”

As the music starts again, and she twirls her hips to the tune of her song, something unexpected happens. For that moment, everyone—freaks and outcasts, cheerleaders and quarterbacks—is unified. Loneliness, the monster that has haunted everyone in the room, has vanished, and with Lady GaGa by our side, it will never come back.

Image: Felipe Dario

Martin Morales BU Alum, Advertising professional, and comic books. I also like music. A lot. I am currently a marketing rockstar at SCVNGR and looking to do some pretty awesome entertainment industry-related things in the future.

View all posts by Martin Morales

17 Responses to “Why Millennials Are Going Gaga”

  1. Felipe D.

    I can’t agree more! GaGa says that anyone can be (or feel like) a star. Glamour is inside you, not on your new designer dress. You can be the star AND the designer.

    A thanks for using my pic :)

    Reply
  3. Meg Flynn

    Fabulous. And I love your point about Gaga going backwards: instead of moving from America’s sweetheart to America’s sexpot, she started out all things in one. Not a packaged consumer good, an artist.

    Reply
  4. McKenzie Lawton

    I absolutely love this article. It completely captures the essence of why Millennials love GaGa so much. I always found it hard to put into words and you’ve done it perfectly. Bravo!

    Reply
  5. Recruiting Animal

    “We have never heard a sound like GaGa’s in the mainstream”

    Please. Pokerface is a good – not-weird – pop song. Lady Gaga is popular because she writes half decent pop songs, has nice figure, likes to show it off, likes to talk about sex and dresses funny.

    Sex, pop music and outlandish costumes. Never heard of that before have we?

    Oh Bondage, Up Yours by the Xray Spex c 1978
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sl-7RSiRXE&feature=related

    Reply
  8. ChristinePeterson

    I remember the first time I heard “Just Dance.” My friend was ridiculously excited to show me the video. I remember thinking: What’s the big deal? It’s a pop song about being drunk at a party. How original.

    Then I heard it like 100 more times and I began to love it. I downloaded the entire album to my computer.

    I hated every other song. I deleted it.

    Several months and hit singles later, I re-downloaded it and love it.

    I honestly don’t think her music is that great, but Gaga keeps winning me over. I love her attitude and her bold style. Being her friend would probably be an adventure every day.

    Reply
    • Jason Potteiger

      I am no music critic, I listen to top 40 radio and NPR when I’m in the car. That said, I don’t think it’s her music as much as her attitude and her image that’s so appealing, apart from the music. She might have a similar product as other pop stars, but she’s so weird and new that you just want to like her. She also feels very authentic, in that she used to just be a song writer and then decided to take a shot at doing the whole thing. As a result I think some people admire her even more for that. Did Brittney or Christina ever really write a song? I’m not sure. It seems like Gaga is a whole new type of pop star from the music on up, it just might not sound that way if you’ve only heard her on the radio. Though, not so much recently–some of her new songs are pretty different.
      Seems like it’s a good example of a brand eclipsing the product. She’s telling a pretty interesting story, or at least a different one, and it’s fresh and resonates with some people really well.

      Reply
  10. Katie Morse

    I was a fan initially because yes, I love cheesy pop-type music. Then, I saw an acoustic performance from NYU's 2005 talent show. link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM

    Holy heck, this girl has TALENT.

    It's not about the crazy costumes (though I love them – remember “Saturn” on SNL?), it's not about pianos with real fire while she's playing, and it's not about her crazy “out there” pop-start attitude.

    It's about all of that, PLUS the fact that she has talent, PLUS the fact that she's out there.

    It's the sum of all of the parts becoming greater than the individual parts themselves.

    Reply
  11. J. L. F.

    “Alejandro” seems to be more of an ode to her Latin lovers than her Latin fans. I'd also describe it as an ABBA-like ode (since it's as much a play on “Fernando” as “Boys Boys Boys” was on Motley Crue's “Girls Girls Girls”) rather than an Ace-of-Base-esque work, but I get your meaning.

    I like how excited your writing sounds. It's an excellent portrait of your and our generation's enthusiasm for GaGa. Bravo!

    Reply
  14. Not Convinced

    Sure, GaGa is different, but I don't think you captured it here. She was a loser in high school – so what? Celebrities say that all the time. The whole dork-turned-hottie thing is pretty common.

    Also, not only do you make generalizations about jocks and cheerleaders, you claim they're the only people who didn't feel “out of place” in high school. Really? What are you basing this argument on?

    Reply
  15. David Bottom

    No offense but Lady Gaga tours and does what she does because it makes her and others lots of money. It's her 15 minutes of fame. That doesn't mean what she portrays doesn't have some element of truth. It most certainly does. But mostly it's a well thought out marketing plan. If you don't agree than are ignorant of of how the music industry works. If she's not making money than she quickly disappears from the scene.

    Reply

Leave a Reply