Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 07/12/2011 at 3:33 PM News

The Popdust Files: Beef, feuds, katy perry, lady gaga

Can’t Katy Perry go planking dressed as a mermaid amid a bunch of glittery green kelp without the Internet turning it into some kind of Lady Gaga feud? Apparently not when:

- Lady Gaga just announced a backstory-soaked mermaid music video, after “The Edge of Glory” proved to be much less fishy–or substantial–than promised.
- Katy Perry’s taken veiled non-disses at Gaga in the past, and some fans think her “E.T.” video ripped off Lady Gaga’s space-themed “Born This Way” video, as opposed to the concept of extraterrestrials or something.
- This is the Internet, where everything is a potential provocation.

Yeah, it’s mostly that last one, isn’t it? Cue Gaga choreographer Laurieann Gibson, who really should know better than this by now, passing and aggressing on Twitter. Cue Monsters setting up a “#KATYCOPYGAGA” hashtag, which sounds more like the wordless syllables of a Lady Gaga song. Cue rampant speculation about the purposes of Perry’s picture–some people are saying it’s for a new music video, which would make sense if Katy Perry had announced a new single. “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” hasn’t even gone No. 1 yet!

This is ridiculous. Even if Katy Perry was trying to kick off dueling mermaid videos, which there isn’t even a scrap of evidence for, and even if dressing up as sexy aliens and sexy cats and sexy mermaids wasn’t Katy Perry’s approach to costuming anyway, and even if Ke$ha hadn’t beaten them both to mermaid costuming anyway, you can’t copyright mermaids. We’ve got to agree with commenter shelbelovesfish (who, judging by her name, knows of what she speaks), posting beneath Perry’s Twitpic: “Ariel would be so pissed off with you saying it was Gaga’s idea. Not cool guys!” And we’ve seen what happens when Ariel gets upset.