I read her story in V Magazine some time ago, and I just watched “A Very Gaga Thanksgiving Special” on ABC. I had a discussion earlier with my father about how he refuses to give Lady Gaga any credit as a real artist or a pop star, and I have to say that I don’t blame him. By his standard of music, she has no legitimacy, and no truth to her image.

At the same time, I think my father’s idea of “truth” is all wrong. I think that Lady Gaga is very truthful to her image. She puts forth an idea of fashion addiction. She’s wholly obsessed with her music, and she’s wholly obsessed with her career. She is drama. She expresses her emotions hyperbolically because that’s what she’s good at. In her interview with Katie Couric, she said that her emotions are sacred to her. Her love life is sacred to her in a different way, and she doesn’t want to express them bluntly to the public. She prefers to give insight to her love life through her music—she gives an insight into her entire life through her music. To say that Lady Gaga is less legitimate because she reveals less of her true self is, in all honesty, a complete lie.

She stands for a lot in our culture. She stands for couture, she stands for pop, she stands for love, and she stands for celebration of self. She stands proud, and she stands grandly. She stands truthfully. She is representing her ideals in the best way she knows how. To say that she’s a croc or a liar is to say that she doesn’t believe in what she says she does.

Just because she’s extravagant doesn’t mean she’s not real.

We should all be trying to stand as much as possible, and as big as possible, and as confidently as possible, for what we believe in. Lady Gaga should be an example, not a joke. 

We should all want a very Gaga life.