Meanwhile Elsa and Zelta were in the canteen cackling evilly. One of them had just made a particularly trenchant joke about Madonna, whilst the other had pulled off a deliciously malicious impersonation. They only ever acted this genially to each other when Madonna was around, for she was clearly a mutual threat. Spite was the one thing they had in common (besides a ruthlessly mercenary business ethos and a large collection of power-suits). Britney’s latest single was briefly interrupted by the sound of a Persian gong signifying the start of the afternoon summit. Both women downed their frappo’s, rushed to the ‘Summit Chamber’ and duly resumed their antagonistic pettiness.

Madonna was thoroughly depressed by the time the tATu girls left. She had set up her lap-top and was idly Googling herself when they finally skipped off home. Having sufficiently assuaged her ego-narcissism she felt able to speak again, and invited Britney over to sit on her knee. “Let me show you something Britty. This computer lets us look at something called the ‘internet’, which is basically a big message board for people to talk about pop stars”. Britney gazed at the screen, bedazzled by a flashing pop-up. “Why don’t you have a go”, urged Madonna, “it’s great for when you’re feeling low.” She placed the lap-top on Britney’s knee and coached her in simple cursor movement skills. “Just click on the search bar… that’s it, now type in your name… no Britty, it starts with a ‘b’, here, that’s it… now press the big button on the keyboard with the arrow”. With some trepidation Britney reached out a petite painted finger and gently tapped the return key.

She flinched slightly as the screen changed, yet giggled coyly when her name appeared several times in blue letters. There were 5,540,000 results. This is what she saw:

Britney Spears :: The Official Web Site
Britney Spears - britney.com - Jive Records
BritneySpears.org: Your online guide to Britney!
The Mystery of Britney's Breasts
Britney Spears guide to Semiconductor Physics

With Madonna guiding her hand she clicked on a link and was shown a picture of herself. “That’s me!” cried Britney jubilantly, “and there’s me again!” Madonna directed her to a gallery and Britney whooped with excitement. Once she’d got the hang of clicking on things herself she went through the pictures methodically, gazing interminably at each one. “This is better than looking at myself in the mirror!”, she exclaimed. Even after 4.7 hours of this she was still giggling and whooping. “There’s me again!” she cried, “and there’s me again! And there’s one of me with a hat on! And, look, there’s one of me holding a funny pink rubbery rod! What’s that funny rubbery rod, Madonna?”

Madonna had wearied slightly by this point but was nevertheless pleased to see Britney taking an interest. “Just think, Britty”, she began, “there are over five million websites with pictures of you. Many of those sites get thousands of visitors a day, which means…” She paused for a spot of arithmetic. “Which means”, she continued, “there are roughly five million thousand people visiting those sites every day. Five thousand million people looking at pictures of YOU, right now! And that doesn’t even take into account already-downloaded images, videos and illicit magazines.” “Wow”, said Britney gobsmacked, “but why would they want to look at pictures of me?”

Madonna sighed and decided to change her tack. “Look”, she explained as she clicked back to the Google homepage, “let’s see what happens when we type M-a-d-o-n-n-a.” Madonna hit the return key with confidence. There were 6,330,000 results. With contrived surprise she read the number aloud. Really she knew exactly how many hits her name generated, as she had studied every page of every site extensively. “Obviously there’s more sites about me because I’ve been going longer”, she bragged whilst trying not to, “plus a few of them are to do with some religious woman who it seems had the same name as me.”

“Officially you need six million hits to be an icon - so you’re nearly there Britty! Incidentally, tATu only have 871,000”. She smiled. “And Christina’s on 2,750,000”. She quoted these figures without any need to enter their names. “The thing is, half the pages about me are totally rubbish, look at this…” She clicked on a random link and drew up an essay from the cultural studies archive at Berkley University.

"Madonna represents the apotheosis of a cultural and discursive mediational process which has become increasingly reified as a result of the capitalist/subjective concretisation engendered by the concomitant value-shift entailed within the post-revisionist project as defined by the anti-historical repudiation of certain basic conceptual demarcations…"

“Look there’s a picture of you!” cried Britney pointing to a small thumbnail accompanying the text. “The point is, Britty”, said Madonna pointedly, “I’m not as big as I was… You’re the one they’re all after now. You’re the one they all want. Do you not understand? Britty, there are five million thousand men looking at you every day, every night…”