Constructing Social Media
Lady Gaga’s Twitter profile in the 2000s and early 2010s played a vital role in developing and nurturing her celebrity status, particularly through allowing her to directly communicate with her fanbase. With this in mind, Lady Gaga often relies upon synergy and spectacle within her digital presence in order to brand herself and build recognition amongst consumers in order to become a successful product.
In his book Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame, Mathieu Deflem extensively discusses Lady Gaga’s use of social media to gain popularity. The scholar wrote a chapter on Lady Gaga’s social media pages, entitled “Gaga Media: From Internet to Radio,” which lays out key information on how the artist utilizes social media to her advantage. Deflem argues that Gaga’s “embrace of the Internet” particularly led her to achieve great levels of success and fame; he even claims that her use of Twitter and the Internet may be more important than her music itself in maintaining public visibility. After all, fan interaction necessitates social media; scholar Lucy Bennett even claims that “the main tools Gaga employs to continue [a] relationship with Little Monsters, [her fans], are the various social media platforms.” Gaga has been known for her diverse and recognizable use of multiple social media platforms, and Twitter comes as no exception.
The below examples extend Deflem and Bennett’s arguments to claim that Lady Gaga not only uses Twitter and social media to garner public attention, but to also express her camp persona to her fans. Scholarly research lacks a thorough discussion of the connection between Gaga’s social media and her campiness, and I will be discussing how the spectacle and exaggerated nature of the artist’s tweets accurately reflect her brand. Through these tweets, Gaga transforms into a consumer product who can broadly connect and sell to fans across the globe.
Fortnite Tweet
On October 15, 2019, Lady Gaga tweeted, “What’s fortnight.” This tweet went viral: it received 847,000 likes and gained a significant amount of response from both the gaming and music community. But then, on February 20, 2024, Lady Gaga reposted and corrected that tweet by further posting “*fortnite” with an image announcing a collaboration with the online video game Fortnite. This follow-up post on X (formerly known as Twitter) also gained traction, garnering over 300,000 likes.
Lady Gaga’s 2019 tweet asking about Fortnite in an incorrectly spelled manner, using “night” rather than “nite,” bolstered her own brand in itself by being humorous and witty. This playfulness highlights Gaga’s reliance on camp to sell her image to audiences, considering her comedy reflects stylized exaggeration. Further, Lady Gaga’s prior lack of connection to Fortnite in her career makes the tweet feel unsuspecting and random, which additionally creates humor, exaggeration, and therefore, camp.
Later, with her 2023 tweet “*fortnite,” Lady Gaga utilizes the virality of her 2019 tweet to collaborate with the Fortnite brand and gain an even larger consumer base through partnering with the gaming industry. The collaboration seemingly draws upon the sporadic nature of her 2019 tweet; the four year delay in correcting her spelling error feels random and perhaps comedic. Plus, a solidified partnership with the gaming industry feels odd, ironic, and humorous in itself, considering Lady Gaga has never been associated with Fortnite prior to the tweet. Therefore, through her unsuspecting collaboration with the Fortnite brand, Lady Gaga calculates camp through comedy and paradox to build her brand awareness and become a sellable consumer product.
Joker Tweet
On April 5, 2023, Lady Gaga tweeted “That’s a wrap X, Harleen” alongside a picture of her in a Harley Quinn costume. This tweet followed news that Lady Gaga would star in Joker: Folie a Deux with Joaquin Phoenix, releasing in 2024. The post went viral and received 318,000 likes, 46,000 reposts, and 5,400 comments.
Lady Gaga’s 2023 tweet highlights a form of synergy between her popular music star image and a budding Hollywood film persona. As a popular music star, Gaga’s cross into the film industry not only can be exciting to fans, but it also allows her to gain a new consumer demographic that may not have enjoyed her otherwise. This entrance into the filmic world seems to mirror scholar Richard Dyer’s claim about the ‘star image,’ in which appearing in multiple films solidifies a celebrity’s status as a true star and icon. Dyer also claims that films are often used as a vehicle to mirror a star’s previously established image, which Joker seems to do with Lady Gaga’s campy persona.
Through playing Harley Quinn, a notably theatrical character due to her high-pitched voice and circus-like outfits, Lady Gaga creates further spectacle that aligns with her previously established exaggerated brand image. The picture posted alongside the tweet emphasizes this theatricality, considering Gaga appears in smudged mascara, bright red lipstick, and eye shadow. This over-the-top makeup highlights how the film becomes a vehicle for Gaga’s pop star image to be carried onto the screen, thus reflecting the exaggerated nature of the camp style.
Additionally, her signing off as “X, Harleen” in the tweet signals that the artist forgoes her previous persona of being Lady Gaga in order to become Harley Quinn, the character she plays in Joker. This seriousness of ‘turning into’ the character reinforces the Gaga brand of aesthetic commitment and performance art (i.e. her immersive sonic soundscapes). This dedication feels stylistically exaggerated in itself, which therefore reflects the camp style.
Her performance as Harley Quinn and commitment to the character through her Twitter profile, therefore, reinforces her brand image as a camp artist. Gaga meticulously constructed this campiness shown in this post to gain more consumer recognition and excitement, which transforms her into a sellable artist.
Inauguration Tweet
On January 20, 2021, Lady Gaga tweeted “A dove carrying an olive branch. May we all make peace with each other,” alongside a picture of her shirt that features the same type of bird. Lady Gaga posted the tweet on the same day as President Joe Biden’s 2021 Inauguration, in which she performed “The National Anthem.” The tweet became one of her most-liked tweets on X, garnering 727,000 likes, 20,000 comments, and 67,000 reposts.
While perhaps not as calculated as her films or brand collaborations, Lady Gaga’s political presence marks a link between her popular music star and activist personas. Through both her performance at the inauguration and her subsequent tweet, Lady Gaga highlights how her brand extends far beyond the music she releases. Scholar Mathieu Deflem further discusses Lady Gaga’s political activism in his book Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame, in which she [fill in with info from the book, prob direct quotes]. With her large following of fans on X/Twitter at the time, Lady Gaga is able to create a sort of political spectacle through her inauguration tweet. Not only does her tweet reinforce her musical themes of self-love and inclusivity (i.e. “may we all make peace with each other”), but her appearance also gains a level of national attention from Americans and citizens all over the world. Thus, her tweet about the inauguration both aligns with her previous brand image and also generates national spectacle.
Through this inauguration tweet, Lady Gaga builds spectacle within her already established persona in order to connect with a national demographic and potentially reaches new consumers. Although the political space may not be labeled as distinctly camp, her reference to a dove may even be seen as theatrical and exaggerated, fitting in with this project’s framework of camp. While this tweet certainly comes from a genuine place, Lady Gaga seems to have specifically crafted her political tweet to fit within both her camp and activist brand image.