I just don't get how some of you seriously think people pay as much attention to GaGa as some of you all do

It has nothing to do with her at all, no one notices except fans. Other things happened on the high rated years (including great performances). A shot of a celebrity who has not had a
major hit in almost a year would not impact ratings in any way.
Kind of irrelevant, but I watched it with 5-7 people and not one person brought her up, except to say "oh I forgot about GaGa, she got too weird anyways and only cared about her monsters." And I think that one friend only knew the name of her fans as she used to like her a bit back in high school. /