What made Lady Gaga become famous so fast?

   With her successful debut album, The Fame, released on August 19th 2008, topping many charts around the world, she became a world star overnight. It is not surprising that she became so famous with her fascinating songs. But Madonna and Britney spears also became famous for their good looking and their popular songs. Then what is so special about Lady Gaga? Her debut was no more explosive than that of any other pop stars. It can be said that she literally became a star overnight since her album had released. Now she has 10 million followers on her facebook and 6 million on her twitter. How can we explain this phenomenon? Is it just because many people like Lady Gaga more than Madonna or Britney Spears? The change in our environment is the answer. It is not because Lady Gaga’s debut album was better than that of Madonna or Britney Spears, but because of the environmental change in our society.

   When Madonna made her debut in 1983, it took weeks to top the billboard chart and make a mark because the promotion team had to merely rely on radio or television broadcastings. Twenty years later in 1999, Britney Spears released her debut album …Baby one more time and for her it took less to distinguish herself thanks to MTV which enhanced the exposure of her undeniable music video as well as traditional radio and television shows. However, television or radio broadcastings, which are intrinsically one-side media, were not effective as the Web do today. When Britney came out the Web existed but there were fewer households who had PC in their home, and also the contents on the Web were limited only to text and photos which we had to wait for minutes to load them.

   On the other hand, by Lady Gaga’s debut in 2008 the Internet played the most significant role, making her superstar overnight. YouTube allowed people to watch Lady Gaga’s eye-popping performance whenever they want to. It wasn’t a big matter if you missed performance at the MTV music award because in a minute it was on the YouTube. Thanks to the video-sharing website people could upload and share video clips of their favorite stars and those who just began to get interested in Lady Gaga ultimately become a fan by watching her fascinating performance. Facebook helped her promotion as well. People can share their interest on their walls and through this it took only few hours to make people know who Lady Gaga is, while it took several seeks at the time when Madonna came out. So it was a matter of accessibility.

   Next to the accessibility to her great debut album it was the Lady Gaga’s personality that attracted many people. Beforehand celebrities had promotion team that gave advices to them what to wear, how to speak and everything possible to make them attractive. Everything was controlled and images were made up so people looked up their stars in awe. However, the separation between celebrities and the public raised somekind of anti-sentiment against the celebrities. Social networking sites on the Web changed the basic relationship to some degrees. Since people are already exposed to many of Lady Gaga’s promotions, video clips in YouTube, fans did not stop there. They wanted to know more about her: what kind of personality she has, what she does in her free time, and what she is thinking right now. Twitter, facebook made this possible.

   On the Web the distance is drawn close between the fans and their stars. Celebrities use twitter or facebook just as other netizens and this made people think that celebrities are just like us. Lady Gaga’s open-minded and highly individual attitude attracted many people. As we can notice by her fashion, wearing innovative costumes, she knows exactly what she wants to do and makes it happen. Her unaffected attitude appealed to many people. She is not an imitation of Madonna or Christina Aguilera. She is Lady Gaga. Without being Lady Gaga herself she could not be famous as she is today.