ABSTRACT
Like her chart-breaking musical success, Lady Gaga’s relationship with fans, built by her
messages of self-acceptance and by her intense engagement with fans through social
media, is unprecedented. Through one-on-one interviews with an international sample of
45 self-described Little Monsters, we explored this unusual fan-celebrity relationship and
found that Lady Gaga’s re-articulation of the negative connotations of “monster” enabled
fans to use her as a mirror to reflect upon and embrace their differences from mainstream
culture. We argue that social media amplify fan identification and raise questions about
the changing nature of fan-celebrity relationships in a digital environment.
