Monsters Inc.

Lady Gaga's "little monsters" are the hardest-working fans in show business

By Douglas Wolk Monday, May 23, 2011
    • Sayre Berman / Corbis

    A trio of Gaga fans pose prior to a concert in Miami

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    Ryan-Lee Johnson, a 20-year-old student from Liverpool who co-manages the perpetually updated Lady Gaga News site, might be the archetypal little monster: he credits her with transforming his life. Two years ago, Johnson was depressed, overweight and estranged from his mother after coming out to her. Then he caught a video of Gaga insisting that "anyone can feel famous — they just have to feel good about themselves to release their inner fame." It was an epiphany. "Gaga is the first person ever to tell me that it's O.K. to be different and it's O.K. to be gay," says Johnson. "It inspired me to lose weight — I've lost about 80 pounds since then — and it gave me so much confidence."

    When 17-year-old Drew Tabor of Los Angeles posted her own solo acoustic performance of "Judas" on YouTube, Gaga linked to it on Twitter ("beautiful ... shows the true meaning of the song," she wrote). "I used to be a lot more shy and not really sure of who I was," Tabor says. "She really shows me that it's O.K. to just be who you are, even if it's kinda weird."

    That quasi-maternal reassurance turns up again and again in little monsters' testimonials about their idol. Whereas other young women in pop (like Rihanna and Britney Spears) present themselves as objects of desire, Gaga frames herself as her fans' ever loving mother figure — eccentric and scantily clad, yes, but Mom all the way. In March she asked little monsters to submit questions to her via YouTube: "I'll let you know when [the answers go] up, and remember, you're all amazing and I love you so, so much. I'll see you soon." That's not the tone of a pop vamp flirting with her audience. It's the tone of a note tucked into a child's lunch box.

    Scan the crowd at a Gaga concert, though, and you'll notice that a lot of little monsters aren't much younger than the mother monster herself. A pop star's audience tends to be kids who are feeling their first stirrings of desire (whether it's for a Jonas Brother or a New Kid on the Block), but many of Gaga's faithful are their older siblings, who feel confused and frustrated about their identities. That means they're also old enough to recognize — as Gaga clearly does — the sublime absurdity of a stranger in a see-through dress dispensing advice on how to become who you are. "You give me so much inspiration," she told an audience at New York's Nassau Coliseum a few weeks ago. "You liberate me." Gaga's theater of gratitude is — to be sure — another pose, another wig, another extravagant costume. But coming from her, that means it's the real thing.

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