Lady Gaga born this way, unable to change for haters

There was a time not so long ago when I was a straight-up hater. Then Jordan changed my mind. There’s no reason to hate (unless you’re Nick, then hate away). Everyone can have theirs, you know? Case in point:

Lady Gaga – (barely) arguably the world’s biggest pop star – is coming to South Africa in November. This as part of The Born This Way Ball Tour and courtesy of Big Concerts. Of course, the announcement was barely out of 5fm DJ Gareth Cliff’s mouth and my ex-fellow-haters were revving their engines online faster’n you can say “Bullet For My Valentine”.

First things first: I really, legitimately like Lady Gaga. And not in the usual self-aware or ironic way I love things like musicals or the albums of White Michael Jackson either. I mean I proper enjoy her music and can get behind everything she stands for. Maybe that makes me a tad biased here, but Another-Day never claimed to be the modern media’s most objective news source (did we? I can’t remember; I’m often under the influence). Hell, our idea of watching the news involves glimpsing at our twitter feeds as headlines pass us by like The Flash. Then we get creative with our opinions and speak about things as convincingly as possible so people will think we know what we’re talking about.

You might be familiar with this method of formulating opinions – if you’re one of these haters.

Like I said, the announcement was barely a bullet loaded in Gareth Cliff’s verbal six-shooter and already the hate parade was riding out for a sunset showdown at the O.K. Corral. Hating on a comments thread like this reminds me of angry sex; it is brief, full of projected negative feelings and mostly pretty self-destructive. While there’s some serious, hard-hitting opinion writing going on in the above thread – I dig Alpin Ardal’s jump from “I’m NOT a fan [of Gaga]” to a commentary on Madonna’s appearance – my absolute favorite is probably Carisma Harmzen’s “Don’t like her!” with that extra “!” for emphasis.

But hey, as I say, to each their own. The woman we’re picking on here isn’t a Saint or a God. She’s just one of us up there on stage, doing her thing the way she likes to do it. When Madonna recently took a potshot at her (possibly because she stole her supply of unicorn blood?), performing a mash-up of one of her songs and Gaga’s, then singing “She’s not me”, Gaga’s response to her fans was “I don’t want to be your fucking queen, I want to be your friend.”

While I imagine we’re not all going to have the same taste in music or fashion or whatever else, for the most part, I like to naively assume that the above quote is a jam we can all get behind. And it’s not the only thing she’s said that I agree with.

“It sometimes makes people feel better about themselves to put other people down or make fun of them or maybe make mockery of their work. And that doesn’t make me feel good at all. That just makes me feel like I’m not being a good human being. I feel like if you’re a really good human being, you can try to find something beautiful in every single person, no matter what.”

Of the Madonna incident, she’s also said:

“I don’t even want to fight back because it’s more important to me to keep writing music. Because that’s really all I care about, is the music… things are really different than they were 25 years ago, and that’s what makes ‘Born this Way’ so relevant for me. We’re socially in a different place and it’s OK, we don’t have to all slice and hate each other anymore.”

I can see where Madonna’s coming from. I can see where all the hate is coming from, really. It’s the way we’ve been trained to think and react to things for centuries of self-involvement. We’re slavishly in love with our own opinions while also thinking we’re not good enough as we are, and so we project a negative sense of self and an arrogant devotion to our beliefs onto everything around us. I’m as guilty of this as anybody else. Gotta try to be balanced about shit is all I can do.

Eh. Anyway. In a few days I’ll be able to buy tickets to see an artist I respect get up on stage and do her thing. At a time when we can be so self-involved, what more could we ask for?

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There’s some info online about the procedure for booking tickets. Prices will range from R515-615 for seated tickets (don’t do it, you guys), and R715 for standing tickets. Booking will open in three stages, starting with “internet only” booking from 9am tomorrow, and then moving on to queues at Computicket outlets on Thursday for Jo’burg and Friday for Cape Town.