A school employee from New Jersey promised students that Lady Gaga would give the kids a talk about bullying via the internet. So she did what any reasonable person with absolutely no access to Lady Gaga would do after making a promise she could not keep: She hired a Lady Gaga impersonator!

"But wait," you say. "Today's media-savvy kids can spot a fake Gaga from a mile away." True enough. Which is why the impersonator was instructed to tell the kids her webcam was broken, and she could therefore only communicate with them via text-based chat. That's so Gaga! (No it isn't.)

And they would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those autograph-verifying kids:

The employee also handed out signed photographs of the singer, and the ruse was exposed when a student noticed the autographs were forged, she said.

You know what this reminds me of? When Ronald McDonald used to show up to my school, and all the grown ups swore up and down it was the real Ronald McDonald, but it was just so obvious to me —from his too-small shoes to that shoddy, street-walker makeup — that they were pawning off some kind of cut-rate impostor.

A rep for Gaga said, meanwhile, said, "She had no knowledge of this and is currently discussing plans to do something with the school, but nothing has been solidified yet." So they just might get their Gaga yet.

[Reuters, photo via Bauer-Griffin]