Why Do Gaga's Machinations Seem Mechanical Now?

“The innovation of Lady Gaga in the desultory days of 2007 was the difference between becoming a youth icon at 16, as Britney and her ilk did, and becoming one at 22, after a diploma from Sacred Heart and a few solid semesters at New York University — and so, presumably, with enough Freud, Marx and Gawker to understand her identity as a commodity, and what that really meant…. ‘The Fame’ was unmitigated fun, a likeable young trader making a killing for her personal account with crafty biography arbitrage — who knew there were inefficient markets willing to pay so much for ‘shut my playboy mouth’ and ‘I wanna take a ride on your disco stick’?”
 — There’s got to be a morning after.