PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
If you can connect to the internet, chances are somewhere, sometime, you've either heard of, or seen, both of the young women photographed above. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta and Onika Tanya Maraj, or Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj as they are famously known, are both young musicians in their 20s who are making a wave in mainstream music - to say the least. I won't bother giving you a bio (that's what Wikipedia is for), but they have completely revolutionized what it means to be an artist today. While Lady Gaga personifies pop and Minaj is famous for her hip-hop rap style, both of these artists are often compared to each other, for obvious reasons. The obsession with fashion, the sky-high heels, the infatuation with wigs, over-the-top makeup, costumes changes to rival who knows what, and most importantly, catchy pop-infused music. And while I don't consider myself either a Monster of a Barb, I do have respect for these two. Using social media and fashion, they are iconizing themselves into our generation. More importantly, I think the outfits and physical appearance serves to show both us and the younger generation what a musician - an entertainer - is supposed to really be: a spectacle. Not someone to "look up to", not a "role model". I don't think any 4 year old girls or boys are wanting to emulate Lady Gaga when they're older. But do people genuinely enjoy her and her music? Yes, why not? I think Minaj and Gaga are doing a brilliant think by taking their music and their facade and putting it as out there as possible, clearly setting themselves apart from us regular folk. This, to me, is the new pop star - the neo-pop star - one who uses social media to engage with their fans, who uses couture looks for music videos, who uses overly explicit lyrics over a catchy beat to create a whirlwind of money, fame and glamor. I commend these women, and hope to continue to be a viewer of their spectacle.
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