Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, born on March 28, 1986. She started her music career early in 2003 by performing the rock music scene in the NewYork City’s East Music Side. She is inspired by artists such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, David Bowie and Queen and her music style is pop and electronica. Gaga is globally influential, she was ranked the 73rd Artist of the 2000-10 decade by Billboard and Time magazine included Gaga in its annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.

Her music shows her minds and her unique characteristics, some people say her fashion is weird, she is bisexual and she is a man. But that doesn’t stop her popularity and she becomes known after her debut album “The Fame” was released in August 2008, but it was until January 2009 when her breakout single “Just Dance” hit no. 1 on the Billboard charts, she becomes immediately famous. Her other songs which are hit are Paparazzi, telephone, etc.

(Source: www. wikipedia.org)

Gaga on Youtube

Lady Gaga has fans around the globe, many of her music video on Youtube breaks over 20,000,000. Comments are made to support her music, while some of them attack her music and on her looks and fashion. It is normally the way that people, both fans and visitors came by to express their opinions on a singers’ song.

Some comments on her music video Telephone:

(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBsypHzF3U)

People remake music videos, cover the songs and the make-up of Lady Gaga or made a parody of her works.

An example is on the music video Telephone:

Official video

Parody

Another example on Lady Gaga music video Bad Romance:

Official video

Parody

Another Parody

Audience can easily approach their favourite singers’ songs on Youtube, it is free. Official channel is set up in Youtube for a commercial purpose and to protect the copyrights. Youtube is a platform to serve as a promotion of the songs, people who have interests can purchase the songs from the iTunes stores. Technology changes people’s daily lives as television is used to be popular and it is the main source which people can receive information, now internet communication take turns and changes this one-way communication into two-ways.

Gaga on Facebook

Aside from Youtube, popular social networks such as Facebook create a channel for fan cultures. Lady Gaga has over 8,000,000 fans on its official page on Facebook. This fan site of Lady Gaga is set up for a commercial purpose also: to promote and update Lady Gaga’s new information, status and music. They also sell products about Lady Gaga, such as the music albums, the Lady Gaga Helvetica Monster Sunglasses, etc. Fans and supporters can also do interactive activities freely in it by expressing their interests in the singer and post fan-made photos.

The “Lady Gaga Monster Fans”

Fans also organize Fans group online by themselves, an example is the group called “Lady Gaga Monster Fans” (http://www.flickr.com/groups/1342001@N21/)

Why do they call themselves Monster Fans? Crazy4gaga on flickr says this implies an identification of a created, intellectual and revolutionary social group more than simply listening to her songs. He or she said, “You dance Lady Gaga songs, you have fun with; you think about what is saying in each song, it integrates with your personality. Your way to dress, your clothing, your makeup and hair style are part of all freedom that Little Monsters embrace.”

This shows that Lady Gaga influence people who join this group, not only her music inspires people, what Gaga wear and whatever she does is a presence of freedom – the freedom to speak up the mind, Crazy4gaga further said, “We are all Crazy 4 Gaga, because she brings who we really are deep inside to this world!”

Source: (http://www.flickr.com/groups/ladygagamonsterfans/discuss/72157623793442893/)

Anti-Gaga on Facebook

Haters of Lady Gaga also set up Anti Lady Gaga page to express their own opinions, here another kind of culture is created against a certain group can be seen.

Example: the “ANTI-Lady Gaga Official Fan Page” on Facebook with only 17 people like it currently.

Cosplays of Lady Gaga Look

I have once seen a Chinese girl mimic her look in the Poker Face video, here in Macau! She was wearing a blonde wig with the ribbon hair style and kind of fashionable dressing on the street.

She has attracted people’s attention with curious looks including mine staring at her. Lady Gage’s fashion is another attraction that draws people’s attention, well, not everyone can see beauty in Gaga’s fashion, but there are “real” and practical supporters.

May be people just like to have fun on what’s popular; it is not hard to see there are popular makeup gurus on Youtube channel teach people how to achieve the look of celebrities and even animated figures such as Avatar and Cinderella. Here below are two examples of the Gaga look from Michelle Pham and MasqueradeMakeup on Youtube.

The Lady Gaga Bad Romance Look from Michelle Pham

Lady Gaga Telephone Makeup Tutorial from MasqueradeMakeup

Some fans or just simply cosplayers remade Gaga’s look and posted their pictures on photo-sharing website, such as the Flickr. Many cosplay website share information about where to buy Lady Gaga costumes.

The Gaga Look in Bad Romance (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashleyj/4128405347/)

The Gaga Look in Dirty, Rich & Beautiful (http://www.flickr.com/photos/32613560@N08/4365165228/)

How Fan Culture is Formed?

It is interesting to discover how the power of a celebrity’s influence people’s lives on Internet. Not simply what fans are doing shows the influence of technology when internet communication era came to take in power, the actions of people, especially that of the business people on how to use technology, they have been able to utilize this resource to make money and to allow users of the websites, video channels and online social network groups to generate user-generated content, which implies they provide a platform that gathers people – for internet users to develop fan culture online! The result we see is that both the owners of the fan groups and fans can achieve purposes that they want. Therefore, the formation of the fan culture is an interactive process to satisfy the desires of different groups of people.

From a different side of view, fan culture is formed, renewed and is continue developing, updating and changing across time from what people think and do which is an active process and activity. Now, technology becomes the newest form of fan creativity, people share information, opinions, creativity, etc. – either good or bad, this encourages information flow and interactive communication.

The relationship between the celebrity and the audience is formed through online groups and sharing resources, audience or fans interacted on what celebrities do and also interact with other people online, therefore we can see them posting comments on Youtube videos and also react to others’ comments. Fans adapt to the media they follow and therefore we can see people making parodies and dress like the celebrities.

This draws strong comparison between 1960s and 2010.

This is a parody of James Blunt’s MV.

I LOVE THIW MOVIE.