Will Forbes ever write a positive article about Madonna?

Today Forbes announced their 2013 list of the world’s most powerful celebrities.

Unlike most Forbes lists, which are base on earnings or net worth, they decided this time to take the abstract parameter “fame” into account, which is based on impact across social media platforms.

Even though they acknowledge that Madonna is the highest-earning musician of the past 12 months, it’s apparently not enough. According to them, female musicians Lady Gaga and Beyoncé had a better year.

Yeah right!...

After several posts throughout 2012 and 2013 that tried to discredit Madonna’s success (including saying her MDNA Tour was a flop as soon as the tickets went on sale, and writing a piece trying to deny the fact that the Queen of Pop is a billionaire), Forbes was finally forced to admit Madonna was the highest paid musician of 2012. But, as predicted, not without petty, unbased remarks on the singer’s success:

They put Madonna as the #5 most powerful celebrity, besides the fact that she earned more money than the other four celebrities above her. One of them, a quite interesting choice, is Lady Gaga at #2.

And what reasoning did Forbes use to put Gaga at #2?

Hypothetical scenarios and the number of social media followers - really! That’s what they did:

“Even so, her massive social media presence, including 38 million Twitter followers and 58 million Facebook fans, helps keep her near the top of our list.”

"Her massive social media presence (…) 38 million Twitter followers"… except that 70% of Gaga’s followers on Twitter have been proven to be INACTIVE and GHOST followers.

38 million Twitter followers… yet, Gaga’s latest album (the one she said would be "the album of the decade”), sold only 5,3 million units on its first year, and since 2011, it has not surpassed 6.5 units sold worldwide.

If social media were such an important factor, don’t you think Gaga’s sales should be somewhere close to 38 million copies sold? And not only around 6?

Poor Lady Gaga, she had to cancel part of her tour… But Forbes also forgot to mention that before cancelling any date, Lady Gaga performed the same amount of shows Madonna performed with the MDNA Tour.

And with the same amount of shows performed, Lady Gaga failed to surpass Madonna both on GROSS REVENUE and ATTENDANCE.

In other words: with the same amount of shows performed, Madonna had more people going to see her than Lady Gaga. Meaning: Madonna makes more money with her MUSIC, but she is on #5, while Gaga is on #2 because of Twitter and Facebook?

In fact, while Forbes used hypothetical scenarios to justify Lady Gaga on #2 (despite failing to beat Madonna on revenue, attendance and merchandise), Madonna appears on the Top 5 at #5 with SOLID NUMBERS - and solid numbers only - not hypothetical scenarios, nor the number of ghost followers she may have on Twitter or any other social media:

Forbes… you are amusing.

I love the hate for Madonna