Don’t Call Me Stefani: The Making of a Digital Age Pop Star

By Elizabeth Barfoot Christian

What comes to mind when you hear “Lady Gaga”?

A raw meat dress? Kermit the frog costume? A machine gun bra? Lack of pants? Odds are —even if you are over the age of 35 and male, you can probably hum a few bars of “Poker Face” or “Alejandro.”

And why is that?

Money, honey (also an aptly titled Gaga song)—that’s what comes to the minds of corporate music makers everywhere. In an increasingly collapsing industry, Gaga has succeeded essentially overnight. While veteran performers have failed to sell enough tickets to profit and some even cancelled entire tours, Gaga has sold out repeat performances in mega-arenas across the world.

The secret to Gaga’s success is all in her marketing. And Gaga is the hottest brand going in the pop culture industry these days. Music is just a small part of the product market affected by her antics. Gaga emerged virtually out of nowhere to become potentially one of the biggest brands in history. This could never have been achieved with pre-digital social networking.

Gaga’s carefully crafted creation story of the freakish though friendly outsider makes us all relate and empathize with the enigmatic New York singer/songwriter Stefani Germanotta turned fashionista, hero to gays, and modern-day Madonna.

Through the use of Internet technology, she continually updates her fans with all the minutiae that is Gaga. The pervasiveness of media technology today makes what Gaga has been able to accomplish all the more remarkable, in that she really had no back story to undo in order to create Gaga lore.

To date, Gaga has four million Twitter followers and is the first musician ever to generate one billion hits on YouTube, which she uses to upload her videos to viewers free of charge.

Gaga went from nowhere to everywhere in a span of 18 months, selling 15 million albums and counting, and has six No. 1 hit singles, two Grammy Awards, and many other awards. She was even named fourth Most Powerful and Influential celebrity by Forbes in June 2010, and Time named her one of the most influential people in the world.

And she’s more than happy to play this capitalist-love game. Gaga, ooh la la

Elizabeth Barfoot Christian is assistant professor of journalism at Louisiana Tech University and the editor of Rock Brands: Selling Sound in a Media Saturated Culture.

Look for another posting from Elizabeth Barfoot Christian in the next few weeks: The remaking of a rock god: Bret Michaels.

Comments

[Charles Dye]

Lady Gaga is in no way a marketing genius.

She is a tool used by the corporate music industry to bring funds into their pockets. I'm not saying she is not talented. I'm saying "She" did not create the huge image that she portays, it was created by someone sitting in an office.

If you tell the American public that they need something long enough, they will buy it and buy it with their last penny. It's not marketing, it's more like peer pressure.

And by the way I thought the meat dress thing was kinda cool.

[Amber]

Lady Gaga definitely knows how to market herself and gain attention. She seems to gain more popularity as time passes. I don't particularly like her, but I admit that she's talented. The songs she sings are very catchy, and I can't help but get the tune stuck in my head when I hear one. This post gives another perspective on how to look at the artist and her marketing techniques. It's insightful and well written.

[Monir Sider]

Pop songs generally conspicuous by a heavy rhythmic element, a mainstream style and traditional structure. The most common modification strophic in form and focuses on memorable melodies, catchy hooks and appeal of the verse-chorus-verse arrangement, with the chorus sharply contrasting verse melodically, rhythmically and harmonically.

[Russ]

I have to say I haven't ever really bought in to all the Lady Gaga hype, but Of Mice and Men covered her song Poker Face and I have to say I did dig it. This blog was incredibly informative because I realistically had no idea exactly how big Lady Gaga had gotten. The fact that she has already had six No. 1 songs is astonishing, most musicians never even have one.

[Madison Harrell]

Nice article Beth! I should have known the article was about Lady Gaga lol. I really don't like much modern pop music but Gaga is pretty much awesome.