page_title: Lady Gaga
section_title: Public image
hierarchical_section_title: Lady Gaga / Public image
caption_attribution_description: English: A wax sculpture of Lady Gaga at Madame Tussauds London.
context_page_description: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, and businesswoman. She is known for reinventing herself throughout her career and for her versatility in numerous areas of the entertainment industry. Gaga began performing as a teenager, singing at open mic nights and acting in school plays. She studied at Collaborative Arts Project 21, through New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, before dropping out to pursue a music career. When Def Jam Recordings canceled her contract, she worked as a songwriter for Sony/ATV Music Publishing, where Akon helped her sign a joint deal with Interscope Records and his own label KonLive Distribution in 2007. She rose to prominence the following year with her debut album The Fame and its chart-topping singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". The album was later reissued to include the EP The Fame Monster, which yielded the singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone", and "Alejandro".
  Gaga's five succeeding studio albums have all debuted atop the US Billboard 200.
context_section_description: Public reception of Gaga's music, fashion sense, and persona is polarized. Because of her influence on modern culture, and her rise to global fame, sociologist Mathieu Deflem of the University of South Carolina has offered a course titled "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of the Fame" since early 2011 with the objective of unraveling "some of the sociologically relevant dimensions of the fame of Lady Gaga". When Gaga met briefly with then-president Barack Obama at a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser, he found the interaction "intimidating" as she was dressed in 16-inch heels, making her the tallest woman in the room. When interviewed by Barbara Walters for her annual ABC News special 10 Most Fascinating People in 2009, Gaga dismissed the claim that she is intersex as an urban legend. Responding to a question on this issue, she expressed her fondness for androgyny. In a 2010 Sunday Times article, Camille Paglia called Gaga "more an identity thief than an erotic taboo breaker, a mainstream manufactured product who claims to be singing for the freaks, the rebellious and the dispossessed when she is none of those".
  Gaga's outlandish fashion sense has also served as an important aspect of her character. During her early career, members of the media compared her fashion choices to those of Christina Aguilera. In 2011, 121 women gathered at the Grammy Awards dressed in costumes similar to those worn by Gaga, earning the 2011 Guinness World Record for Largest Gathering of Lady Gaga Impersonators. The Global Language Monitor named "Lady Gaga" as the Top Fashion Buzzword with her trademark "no pants" a close third. Entertainment Weekly put her outfits on its end of the decade "best-of" list, saying that she "brought performance art into the mainstream".
  Time placed Gaga on their All-Time 100 Fashion Icons List, stating: "Lady Gaga is just as notorious for her outrageous style as she is for her pop hits ... [Gaga] has sported outfits made from plastic bubbles, Kermit the Frog dolls, and raw meat." Gaga wore a dress made of raw beef to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, which was supplemented by boots, a purse, and a hat also made out of raw beef. Partly awarded in recognition of the dress, Vogue named her one of the Best Dressed people of 2010 and Time named the dress the Fashion Statement of the year. It attracted the attention of worldwide media; the animal rights organization PETA found it offensive. The meat dress was displayed at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 2012, and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in September 2015.
  Gaga's fans call her "Mother Monster", and she often refers to them as "Little Monsters", a phrase which she had tattooed on herself in dedication. In his article "Lady Gaga Pioneered Online Fandom Culture As We Know It" for Vice, Jake Hall wrote that Gaga inspired several subsequent fan-brandings, such as those of Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Justin Bieber. In July 2012, Gaga also co-founded the social networking service LittleMonsters.com, devoted to her fans. According to Guinness World Records, Gaga was the most followed person on Twitter in 2011, and the most followed female pop singer and the most powerful popstar in 2014. Forbes included Gaga on its Celebrity 100 from 2010 to 2015 and then from 2018 to 2020 and its list of the World's Most Powerful Women from 2010 to 2014. She earned $62 million, $90 million, $52 million, $80 million, $33 million, and $59 million from 2010 through 2015, and $50 million, $39 million and $38 million between 2018 and 2020. She was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2010 and 2019, and ranked second in most influential people of the past ten years in a Time magazine readers' poll in 2013. In March 2012, Gaga was ranked fourth on Billboard's list of top moneymakers of 2011 with earnings of $25 million, which included sales from Born This Way and her Monster Ball Tour. The following year, she topped Forbes' List of Top-Earning Celebs Under 30, and in February 2016, the magazine estimated Gaga's net worth to be $275 million. In Dec
caption: In 2010, eight wax figures of Gaga were installed at the museum Madame Tussauds.[281]
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