Gaga Meets with Obama to Stop Bullying for Good!

As I'm sure many of you have read in the papers, another life was recently lost in a traumatic suicide, ironically enough by Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old boy who participated in the "It Gets Better" YouTube.com campaign. While friends and family didn't think that his bullying affected him deeply and was simply "brushed off", the vivacious teen unfortunately took matters into his own hands. After hearing about all of this, Lady Gaga, probably one of the biggest LGBT advocates in the industry, decided that she was ready for some dramatic change, and in black attire, purchased a $38,000 ticket and attended a dinner hosted by President Obama in the District last evening. With a panel available for discussion to audience members, Gaga read to Obama a pre-rehearsed letter, documenting the amount of suicides having taken place over the past year, and pressing him to make bullying an issue regarded by the administration. Apparently (and this is only heresay), Obama appreciated Gaga's testament to the cause, and said that the White House was continuing to develop extensive anti-bullying campaigns to be showcased in schools throughout the country. Whether he decides to go through with it, Gaga put on her fighting gloves and gave it her best shot yesterday, which is a testament to her dedication in and of itself.
Now, say what you want about Gaga; her outfits are ridiculous, she does try to hard sometimes, and the shock art stuff that she tries to pull off sometimes does border on an underlying insecurity that we all secretly know exists inside of her. However, it's extremely impressive that Lady Gaga has taken such a stance on a political issue, knowing that she's so influential. Some celebrities take on particular platforms, donate lump sums of money to a particular cause, or take on one-off volunteer projects; all which are great and extremely valued. But the fact that Gaga showed up, in person, and continues to verbally fight for a cause that is so intertwined with the lives of many of her fans is extremely touching. Hopefully, Gaga is also setting the tone for what the non-celebritiy world should be doing and the issues that we should be focussing in on. While Jamey's suicide, and all of the teens suicides, are terrible tragedies and should have been avoided, I see these young men and women as being martyrs and helping us take notice to paving the way for a new movement of respect, tolerance, and kindness.