The mistreatment of Lady Gaga during the ARTPOP era; a thread. #justiceforARTPOP

Let’s start with before the actual era. When Marry the Night and The Edge of Glory underperformed in the US, her ex manager Troy Carter put Gaga to the side and began focusing on other projects as she wasn’t the “cash cow” Carter wanted her to be.

ARTPOP was originally supposed to be released during spring however that is when Gaga broke her hip on the BTW Ball (Carter didn’t even visit her in the hospital) and everything was postponed. During this time many fans thought that she was lying about her hip and criticized her.

Eventhough Gaga wasn’t fully healed both physically or mentally, Carter pushed her to begin teasing and promoting ARTPOP. She had problems with the record label already from the get go as she wanted Aura to be the lead single with a music video accompanying it (telephone part 2).

The label rejected this idea and wanted applause to be the lead as it was more “radio friendly”. This is when Gaga began feeling that her creativity and ideas weren’t even being considered and that she was being pushed to become this money making machine again.

To get back at her label she then leaked Aura on a fan site under a fake name. Applause also leaked a week before release and had to compete with Katy Perry’s “Roar”. Applause lost the battle as Katy was in her peak and many fans began to turn on her for not being “successful”.

The album itself didn’t do poorly debuting at no. 1 with 258,000 however, when compared with her peers who were at their peaks and when compared with the numbers her past albums pulled this album quickly became called a “FLOP” by her “fans”, the public and especially the media.

Looking back at the album reviews itself the album got mixed reviews leaving people “disappointed”, an image that the album no longer has as it is regarded as “too ahead for its time”. But at the time the album gave her many negative headlines with people calling her “generic”.

We also learned that the record label had told Gaga to change the album as it was “too experimental” and that the general public wouldn’t like it, therefore dividing the project in 2 with the first commercial part being ARTPOP and the second experimental one being ARTPOP ACT II.

Lots of fans began switching fanbases and saying that “Lady Gaga was over” just because Applause didn’t go number 1 in the US and ARTPOP “flopped”. She then wanted to release Venus as the second single with a Video already filmed and directed however the label said no.

DWUW was already getting attention and therefore the label wanted to push this as the second single with another music video, that was filmed, delayed and then scrapped with TMZ leaking some scenes.

DWUW was now getting performed at awards shows and talk shows alike, with accompanying negative headlines to each performance, completely missing the songs message of rebellion against the media and haters and turning it into a “sexual song” making the public hate her more.

As the allegations against R.Kelly and Terry Richardson began to pile up, Gaga scrapped the music video, pulled the song out of the radio, stopped promoting the single and recorded an alternative version with Xtina. Years later she apologized and deleted the collaboration.

The media and public were over her, the hype was dead and hating on Lady Gaga became a trend. She was constantly compared to other artists, ridiculized for her outfits and wasn’t taken seriously.

A lot of fans were disappointed therefore, in order to make up for her label and teams incompetence and greediness she then payed for the G.U.Y video with her own money as a “gift for the fans” something her team didn’t want her to do. The single and MV underperformed.

Even more “fans” began switching sides and jumping on the hate train calling her lazy, a liar and many other things as she said she was going to do certain things but her team and label prevented her from putting out certain songs or videos. Gaga essentially wanted a visual album

Dope reached number 9 on the BB100 and the night Gaga attended the Youtube music awards to perform it, her ex manager Troy Carter left her, someone she thought was a close friend, soon to be followed by Tara Savelo her long time MUA that had to leave due to her health conditions.

Along with Carter a lot of her team decided to abandon her as well because they didn’t see her as a “money making machine” and thought that her career was over. Here’s what she said after her split with Carter, apologizing to the fans and for the messy era.

The backlash and hate from the public, the “fans” and the media didn’t stop and were fueled further when Gaga performed Swine at the SWXSW festival. The infamous performance where she worked with a vomit artist to represent how disgusting she felt after being assa*lted.

People began saying it was “glamourizing eating disorders” and that not everything was art as well as saying that Gaga was desperate for attention. Also starting a “feud” with Demi Lovato who called out her performance. Shady exchanges were also made between Gaga and Katy.

The media wouldn’t leave her alone and began to boycott her, meaning that whatever Gaga did it got a bad headline. Fake news were being spread as facts, especially about how much ARTPOP “flopped” and how much “money the label lost”. She was seen as a music industry joke.

All of this and the constant hate from everyone caused Gaga to be depressed and to start using drugs again during her ARTRAVE Ball Tour. Luckily, Tony Benett found her and pulled her out of this dark moment of her life, probably saving her life.

With Cheek to Cheek, the no.1 grammy winning album, Gaga basically wanted to leave the ARTPOP era, the promises and her old team that cares more about the money behind her which ultimately meant the ARTPOP App and ARTPOP ACT II were scrapped and the era was over.

Here’s an interesting thread of the scrapped and cancelled projects during the era, that were leaked as documents a few months ago. https://twitter.com/plasticact2/status/1261729273859227650

As an overview we can see that during the era:
- Her old team didn’t care about her.

-EVERYONE hated her and made her depressed.

-A lot of projects had to be scrapped and promises broken.

-Her “fans” switched on her and she was constantly ridiculed and targeted by the media.

I’ve said this before but if the scrapped projects happened and Gaga actually got her way with how she wanted ARTPOP and the Era to be it would have easily been one of or the biggest era in Music history ever. I’m glad the album and era is getting its redemption today though.