In the era of social media and #friendshipgoals, the otherwise straightforward concept of being mates with someone has taken a completely different form. While it’s with great scepticism that we look at apps like Instagram, with the general understanding that things are never as perfect as they seem online, there still seems to be that weird unspoken assumption that you can only possibly be friends with the people you tweet, tag or gram about. If you haven’t got shared loads of pictures with them are you even friends, right? Truth be told, Taylor Swift’s squad on tour back in 2015 played a big part in driving this home, but Beyoncé and Lady Gaga have just proven that it’s not the only way to be a good friend.
If you haven’t got shared loads of pictures with them are you even friends, right? Truth be told, Taylor Swift’s squad on tour back in 2015 played a big part in driving this home, but Beyoncé and Lady Gaga have just proven that it’s not the only way to be a good friend.
Beyond their one and only collaboration on ‘Telephone’ eight years ago, how much do we really know about Beyoncé and Lady Gaga’s relationship? The answer is not all that much, which I’m going to propose is a good thing. Beyoncé has always kept her friends pretty separate from what we see on her social media. And while Lady Gaga has always been very vocal in her support of female musicians going through hard times, she’s not really been one to name drop fellow celebs for the sake of telling the world ‘look, I know another famous lady IRL’.
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Just recently, though, Lady Gaga shared a picture of herself wearing an Ivy Park sweater with a cute little thank you message to Beyoncé. You might’ve heard that Lady Gaga struggles with a chronic pain condition called fibromyalgia which has meant she’s had to delay some of her world tour. She’s currently taking some time off to recover and posted a selfie to Instagram saying: ‘Not having a good pain day. Thank you honey B for sending me this comfy sweatshirt. Keeps me warm outside in a hammock so I can be w the trees, and the sky, and the sun and take deep breaths. Feel so lucky to have so much love’.
The picture was closely followed by another of some beautiful red roses which Lady Gaga captioned: 'Thank you so much honey B. Miss you. This was so kind. If I hadn’t seen your videos on TV at grandmas house after I got dropped from def jam records, I would have given up. You inspire us all. The dream you embody kept me going’.
Sweet, isn’t it? But what’s even sweeter is that this feels a bit out of the blue. It doesn’t feel like a publicity focused stunt in anticipation of a new collaboration (as brilliant as that would be). It’s not in response to rumours about whether or not the pair have had a crazy high-profile fallout. It’s just one friend sending another friend something nice to make them feel better. And we’ve got a lot of time for that.
Quite often, celebrity female friendships as told by Instagram can’t help but feel commodified. Who's endorsing who? Who's about to collaborate with who? Who's throwing shade at who? And so on, and so on. So let's take a minute to appreciate the fact that this isn't the only example of how female friendship has to be conducted. My guess is that Beyoncé and Lady Gaga are still good mates. I also guess that, beyond the occasional birthday tweet, they've remained good mates off of social media. I like to think that they speak to each other on the phone and sing their own 'Telephone' lyrics to each other as they reminisce about the good old days. There's a lot of value in sending a mate you haven't seen in ages some flowers IRL, you know. Whether or not they Instagram about it later.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.