Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanatics

for tea and a chat. Here are some more key ways Gaga shows that she is a fan of her fans.

During a break in the show, she and two dancers sit at the edge of the stage in front of the Monster Pit. Fans come to the Ball bearing gifts that they throw to Gaga, who opens them onstage. At the Brisbane, Australia, stop of the tour, Gaga received a black vest with “Born This Way” painted on the back, a giant mechanical monster paw that glowed r

During the last song of the concert, “Marry the Night,” Gaga picks a young fan from one of the front rows. He or she appears to be around eleven or twelve years old and becomes part of a narrative she is weaving right before the song starts. She asks the fan his or her name and introduces him or her to the crowd. She holds the fan’s hand and walks

“This is a necklace I’ll give to the first monster in line every night at the Ball. It’s a symbol of the ‘key’ that opens the pit every night.” The Monster Pit is an enclosed general admission area around the stage reserved for hard-core fans. She’s keeping the real key, a much larger cardboard version, for herself, though (see Fig. 6.1). In a foll

them.

“I believe that everyone can do what I’m doing. Everyone can access the parts of themselves that are great. I’m just a girl from New York City who decided to do this, after all. Rule the world! What’s life worth living if you don’t rule it?”

Perhaps Saul best describes the idea of generating something meaningful to talk about when he says: “Customers are always more than customers. They are people. Sure you can read that and think it’s buzz speak or a cliché—but once you have shared a meal with someone and had a chat about stuff not revolving around work, you look at them differently a

Little Monsters will dissect and debate what things mean on online fan forums, Twitter, and Littlemonsters.com. Often Gaga will chime in on the conversation to help them understand. This helps bind the fan community together because they “get” her, even if outsiders do not. But it also keeps the outsiders talking, wondering, and attempting to inter

Another great aspect of Phone a Monster is that Lady Gaga partnered with Virgin Mobile to make it happen. Before calling the fan, she tells the audience that Virgin is supporting the Monster Ball Tour to raise money to help homeless youth by donating $20,000 each time she calls a fan. In some cities on the tour, fans that volunteered their time at