Lady Gaga

New York Magazine: "How Lady Gaga Became the World's Biggest Pop Star"

"But [Madonna and Lady Gaga] are very different: Madonna hasn’t had a sense of humor about herself since the nineties, where Gaga is all fun and play. At her core, she’s a young art-school student, full of optimism and kindness, childlike wonder at the bubble world."

"But that’s the genius of Gaga: her willingness to be a mutant, a cartoon. She’s got an awesome sense of humor, beaming tiny surreal moments across the world for our pleasure every day—like the gigantic bow made of hair she popped on her head last year. “One day, I said to my creative team, ‘Gaultier did bows, let’s do it in a new way,’ ” she says. “We were going back and forth with ideas, and then I said”—snaps finger—“hair-bow.” She giggles. “We all f-ing died, we died. It never cost a penny, and it looked so brilliant. It’s just one of those things. I’m very arrogant about it.” Her videos are global epiphenomena, like the Tarantino-flavored “Telephone,” with its lesbian prison themes and Beyoncé guest appearance. “Gaga doesn’t care so much about the technical part, but she’s involved in every creative aspect,” says Åkerlund. “We just allow ourselves to be very stupid with each other, and then you get ideas like sunglasses made of cigarettes.”"

This is all so wonderfully postmodern. Postmodernism is exactly why Lady Gaga is a different type of pop-star than Madonna. With Madonna (as far as I can tell), people actually thought that she was creating something new. Lady Gaga knows that she will never be able to create something truly original.

This is the same boat that all postmodernists find themselves in. With the advent of the internet, we all know that there are no real new ideas. "Nothing is new under the sun." and all that.

So what's a postmodern pop-star to do? Make it a joke! Create visual jokes that make references and humorous juxtapositions. We can only create something new by taking pieces of old things and reforming them. And, the self-consciousness in this process ("I'm very arrogant about it" - about thinking that she could make something original...it was all Gaultier), being self-conscious about the process of stealing ideas...this is treated with humor. There is nothing worse than claiming originality and being proved wrong.