@Fredorrarci has an old post on what the effusive praise for Messi (in many cases at Ronaldo’s expense) says about the players and the fans choosing sides. Read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt:

He is clean and germ-free; to borrow Richard Whittall’s description, “he leaves no lingering aura”. There is nothing remotely unsettling about him. So he retains a kind of purity. He reflects what we want football to be, and when we flatter Messi for his angelic play, we are also flattering ourselves for having the good taste to flatter him.

Replace “Messi” with “Adele” and replace “Ronaldo” with “Gaga/the rest of popular music” and you get a good picture of how I am looking at some of the overwhelming reactions to the VMAs.