Does GGD care too much about competition?

[Didymus 34,380]

It happens so often that the most discussed threads are about Katy, Madonna and Rihanna, I often wonder if a significant amount of Gaga's fanbase actually cares more about the competitive dimension surrounding Gaga's career than Gaga and her work itself, at least when talking about it is concerned

What do y'all think about it?

Are GGD members a lot more interested to discuss Gaga's competition than Gaga's work?

An illustrative example:

Another very odd example was that thread about Madonna's supposed pedophilia tendencies being the #1 thread for like a full week

Share your thoughts about this! All opinions welcome

Didy's thoughts:

Spoiler

Personally I do think there's an odd trend going on in here. Most threads that want to open up about Gaga's work (which is not the same as making another complaint thread) end up either flopping or doing significantly worse in terms of popularity than the thread about Katy that's been made twenty times already.

It's of course human nature for fans to love to pull down competition, so I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with it, but I did hope in the beginning of Gaga's career that her fanbase would be unique because there was simply so much to discuss about her. So many ideas to think and talk about. On GGD that's definitely not the case.

I know that many people seem convinced that Gaga started to care less about this forum because of the fans' negativity towards her, but the people who remember EmmaGate 2013 well will remember that Emma gave a very different expanation: Gaga was tired of fans caring more about her commercial performance in comparison to other artists than her actual work. In a dramatic segment about the GGD fiasco that day, Emma spoke out about it on Radio ARTPOP, saying (paraphr.):

"If you're just here to ride Gaga's success train, then she doesn't even consider you a fan! ... She likes and invites criticism of her work and does not just surround herself with "yes people"!"

That seems to have been forgotten, most members being in an unspoken agreement that Gaga left because of fan negativity towards her as an artist, when it seems it had more to do with the fans' treatment of her career as a discussion subject: a career that is supposed to succeed on commercial terms more than on artistic ones. I thought I'd bring that up again to see an interesting discussion unfold. If people open the spoiler, that is

Discuss!

[Didymus 34,380]

Watch this flop too

[ViviLittleM 3]

well it's important.

I mean,

yeah music not the bling

but

the competitions... and the medias... are "linking" together

do you remember how competition and medias ruined the ARTPOP era and Gaga's mind?

[River 117,273]

ARTPOP trauma, it'll take time to heal..

[Cheap thrills 1,282]

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

Same as in political threads. People don't even know why they dislike Hillary. They only do because she's not their preferred candidate  They don't even know their own candidate sometimes 

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But this competitive feel is what keeps people interested I guess. They like success, to vindicate their own fandom and shove it in people's faces. They like controversy, to put down others to elevate their own choice in comparison.

Success and controversy. Those are the threads that will most often be winning threads, irrespective of who and what is in them.

Of course this is a Gaga website so every thread about her actions will be successful, but success and controversy are the reason other stars get the limelight too.

This is all natural too. Nobody is exhibiting anything out of the ordinary. We humans like to gossip. 

[Didymus 34,380]

12 minutes ago, ViviLittleM said:

well it's important.

I mean,

yeah music not the bling

but

the competitions... and the medias... are "linking" together

do you remember how competition and medias ruined the ARTPOP era and Gaga's mind?

But on the other hand Gaga asked her fans directly in August to stop engaging in fights with other fanbases (Katy's, obviously in that period) and to stop talking about the randomly posted opinions they were seeing about her work.

Like, she tweeted this in August: "The fans + music scholars are the best critics because they know the artist intimately". That's what my thread is about in the end. Are fans interested in exploring her work and her as an artist intimately or are they more interested to actually focus on what she's directly telling us not to focus on?

Like she tweeted in the same period: "I want people to focus on my new work, not gossip". I agree that eventually the combined power of strong competition and media targeting (though I find the latter quite overrated by the fans) made a strong impact on her state of mind and the era, but you can also ask yourself the question if this was mainly because the fans happily joined in and did the opposite of what Gaga expected/wanted us to.

I think there's more than enough evidence of that. She blocked her own fans on Twitter for focusing too much on her commercial performance and on negativity towards other artists, and she made quite remarkable statements about how she felt like her fanbase was being separated in the ones that "got it" and the ones that didn't. Quite interesting stuff. I feel like it got lost in the general fabricated fan memory of the era as somehow ruined by the management, and not at least partly by her own fanbase.

[Didymus 34,380]

8 minutes ago, LebaneseDude said:

This is all natural too. Nobody is exhibiting anything out of the ordinary. We humans like to gossip. 

Absolutely. But I like I wrote in the spoiler, I think this actually had a bigger impact on Gaga abandoning GGD and her fans on social media than often suspected by the fans who usually credit people like me for that, who are too "critical" of her. As Emma said in 2013, this was the exact opposite reason of why Gaga stopped checking this site.

So I thought I'd bring it up again, 'cause I feel like after ARTPOP it never really got discussed again, and with LG5 looming ahead, I find it important that we maybe reflect on the possibility or probability of making the same "mistake" (if it's a mistake, that is) again.

[August Blue 8,566]

I agree, eventho I dont understand why this happens, maybe we have discussed about gaga enough and every thread about her thats its not "news" its boring now.

Then i think how can you ever talk enough about gaga  

and yes sometimes imo its annoying when gaga related  threads flopp and other artists like KP/Madonna become hit threads   

And about the competition .. I think many fans have kinda lost a bit of monster faith in ha since ARTPOP.. Which is understandable.. But she is making a whole new album and shes been working for so long and with so many people .. No matter what we will love it and buy it and learn it byheart

[hELXIG 43,083]

Yeah I definitely think so. 

Everyone is so full of fear.

And I think that people buy into the common theme of putting women against women in the music industry. Even if they're doing it subconsciously.

It's like her success only matters to people here if she's doing better than other stars. But why? Two and a half MILLION albums sold is still a huge number.

Think of it this way: if she were Stefani, still trying to break into the music biz, her fans would be excited and happy for her if she sold 1000 albums. But because she's Gaga, who sold 1.1 million albums of BTW in the first week alone, people think she's 'flopping'... by selling one and a half million albums... She still earned millions of dollars from ARTPOP. MILLIONS OF $$$.

[ItsTommyBitch 12,640]

Probably  

I'm hoping LG5 delivers something deep so that we can at least move from annoying competition/rumor threads to annoying deep analysis of the music threads

There were a lot of those during the ARTPOP era and while many were just like, people grasping for straws trying to make the actual album more than it was, it was fascinating to recap on all of the interviews, etc. and discuss the songs.

I'm ready for it  

[Nono 3,576]

I can say music not the bling, but in the end of the day the media and competition can destroy an album and nobody wants that.. Gaga isnt the same person and neither are her fans. They are afraid and curious what the other popstars are offering and they surely dont wanna see them doing something better than Gaga and thats why it happens that the most discussed threads are about katy, madonna...

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

7 minutes ago, Didymus said:

Absolutely. But I like I wrote in the spoiler, I think this actually had a bigger impact on Gaga abandoning GGD and her fans on social media than often suspected by the fans who usually credit people like me for that, who are too "critical" of her. As Emma said in 2013, this was the exact opposite reason of why Gaga stopped checking this site.

So I thought I'd bring it up again, 'cause I feel like after ARTPOP it never really got discussed again, and with LG5 looming ahead, I find it important that we maybe reflect on the possibility or probability of making the same "mistake" (if it's a mistake, that is) again.

As in you are concerned that people won't want to be critical of LG5?

[Swan Heart 7,382]

Not all of GGD, but yeah.

[2020Covid19IsOurs 6,901]

I can't say for everyone but I'm really scared for gaga. I'm not kidding. This is a make or break level of era so anything done intentionally to derail the momentum that gaga has acquired is going to make me mad. 

I'm also paranoid that people in the music industry wants her out especially because of her defiant attitude and being proactive in controversial issues.