“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool.”
-Philip Seymour Hoffman in Almost Famous
Dear Stefani Germanotta, Class of 2004,
Congratulations on your recent record breaker—10,000,000 followers on Twitter. It’s quite an achievement… that’s a hell of a lot of people interested in what you have to say. I bet you’re probably wishing you could teleport back in time, back when you and I were both in our respective high schools. I could imagine us being friends: you, the quietly jubilant, choir singing Rocky Horror fan and I, the shy, introverted A-student who wanted nothing more than to be left alone with his Stephen King paperback in the back corner of the classroom. I imagine, if you could, you’d go back and tell your sixteen-year-old self, the one that was purportedly picked on and teased on a regular basis, that one day you’d be a Grammy-winning, record breaking, inconceivably popular performer and recording artist, with ten million people across the world willing to listen to you… willing to love you, to look up to you. I wonder what sixteen-year-old you would have thought about that.
I also wonder what twenty-five year-old you thinks about all of this now. The fame, the attention… the constant interviews, photo sessions, concerts and recording sessions. The costume changes and the sheltered, never spotted in the grocery store type of life… it must be incredibly lonely. Ten million is a lot of people… it’s not like you can go out for dinner like we can, or go to a record store or walk your dog in the park. I mean, you’re Lady Gaga—you incite heated debate, fervent fan worship, and zealous criticism with every single thing you do. The option of a normal, boring, every day life has long since been thrown by the wayside, like a shed skin you’ve discarded without a moment’s hesitation. You, Gaga, will never be normal, never be ordinary. You’ve assigned yourself a life of forced isolation, of creative and social loneliness that no TV interview, no sold-out concert, and no album sales figure will ever cure.
But I don’t feel bad for you. Not for a single second. It isn’t because I envy the attention or think that you have enough adoring fans to fill the vacuum. It’s because I don’t appreciate or recognize the importance of popularity. That’s where you and I are probably different.
You and I were born five days apart, and I like to imagine we both shared similar experiences growing up—you in your Manhattan private school and I in my suburban public school prison. We were both raised Christian, both took piano lessons. We were both shy, quiet kids who got picked on because we didn’t fit in with the accepted norm. We both went to NYU at the same time. We probably have some of the same favorite bands and albums, TV shows and cartoons we used to watch on Saturday mornings. You probably didn’t ever ride your bike to the local music store with your allowance money, buying whatever Elton John cassette you could afford that month… but I imagine you would have if you had to.
I imagine these things we both went through, but then I hear you say stuff like "Those things in life that haunt you are just part of what you must [go] through in order to become great” and I wonder what clicked in you that made you want to become a world-conquering star, as though that would silence the catcalls of all the bullies you stoically ignored. I know I never wanted to be popular… if anything, being picked on so haphazardly made me want to sulk even further into the corner of class, even deeper into that quiet, lonely place where your thoughts have room to breath and no one forces you to raise your hand and answer questions you’d just as soon not. I never wanted to be great, but you sure as hell did.
Do you really feel haunted by high school? I know I’ve scoffed as much as the next music journalist about your lavish costumes, constant attention-whoring, and never-ending desire to be bold, brash, different, and outside the box. What is it all for, Gaga? Who, all these years later, are you trying to prove wrong? None of what you do now will ever change what those kids said and did to you. Even if every single one of them felt nothing but crippling pangs of regret over how they treated you in high school, as I imagine some do, it won’t change the fact that you’re you and I’m me and those years sucked for us both.
Lady Gaga, there are still bullies out there who will write on your locker, call you a talentless, worthless slut, and throw you into the trash. There will always be those people, I know that you know that… I just don’t think that ten million or a hundred billion Twitter followers will ever cover up those wounds. You can pile all the dance beats and lavish music videos in the world on top of it, but in the end, popularity doesn’t cure loneliness. It doesn’t alleviate insecurity or stress, it doesn’t solve personal issues or right wrongs. It can’t write songs, it can’t give you a hug when you need one.
I will probably never be a huge fan of your music, but I still appreciate how adamantly you insist that each one of your ten million plus fans feel good about who they are, no matter what anyone else in the world says. It’s a great message, I just kinda wish it wasn’t coming from the most popular girl in school. Because I never liked that girl, and she would never have wanted to be my friend.
Sincerely,
Brett Warner
Ology.com
Twitter Follower #9,689,122
(p.s. Anytime you want to ditch the pop star life for an afternoon and come over to my house to hang out, you’re more than welcome. We can listen to my old Elton John cassettes.)
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Dear So-And-So is an ongoing series of open letters to our most loved/hated celebrities. Check out our recent letters to:
Giada de Laurentiis
Donald Trump
Prince
Jack White
Phil Collins
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Follow Brett Warner on Twitter: @Erasurehead
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