Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanatics

the show. And then I’d perform at bars and there’d be like 30 people. Then there were 300. And then 3,000.” She is now standing directly behind the fan. She puts her hands over the eyes of the fan and says slowly, “Then one day . . . ,” and removes her hands from the fan’s eyes, “there were . . . Thirty. Thousand. People.” As people erupt in cheers

Gaga is not the only one encouraging fans to collaborate. Fans themselves are coming up with projects and encouraging other fans to participate. In March 2010, Ryan James Yezak, a fan and young filmmaker from Los Angeles, asked fans to help make a video for Gaga’s twenty-fourth birthday. Yezak spliced together video clips of birthday messages from

As the leader of the fan community, Gaga shares her achievements but presents them as milestones that the community has achieved together. For example, on October 24, 2011, when the collective views of all the videos on Gaga’s YouTube channel reached one billion, she celebrated with fans, tweeting, “We reached 1 Billion views on youtube little mons

objective. In the next chapter, we will look into her unique fan philosophy of focusing most of her efforts on a very small part of her fan base—the One Percenters.

it, too. They understand that if they are simply trying to sell something for the sake of selling, solely for the sake of making a profit, that they will not convince people for very long. They might get people to try their products once, but they won’t create a passion in people to pass the word along. And they won’t have lifelong customers or fan

imagery by understanding the power of images already out there and manipulating them to fit her ethos.

During the Monster Ball concerts, she speaks to the audience, telling them the type of experience she aims to create: The Monster Ball will set you free! And the best thing about the Monster Ball is that I created it so my fans have a place to go. A place where all the freaks are outside and I lock the fucking doors. It don’t matter who you are, wh

these fans, and a loyal community of like-minded people has rallied around her as a result.

“The subject line said ‘To Jacques from Lady Gaga,’” St. Pierre explained. “It said ‘click on the link below to download the video for your assembly.’ So no questions asked, Lady Gaga sent us a video. I watched it, and I started crying. I’m a huge fan. It’s kind of embarrassing because I love her so much. I couldn’t believe it.” In the video Lady G