Few phrases are as iconic to fans of Lady Gaga than being instructed to “put your paws up” — and Drag Race alum Bob the Drag Queen decided to figure out exactly how often Mother Monster still says it.
In a video posted to his TikTok on Wednesday (Aug. 6), Bob shared a clip of himself preparing to attend the Mayhem Ball in Los Angeles, in which he revealed his plan to track the number of times Gaga instructs her fans to put their hands in the air.
“I’m headed to the Mayhem Ball, and I have this little counter,” Bob said, holding up a handheld tally counter to the camera. “I’m gonna count how many times Lady Gaga requests that we put our hands up. I’m counting ‘put your hands up,’ ‘put your paws up,’ ‘get them up,’ ‘hands up,’ anytime it is clear to me that she is wanting us to put our hands in the air.”
Throughout the rest of the clip, Bob interviews a series of his friends before the show to get their predictions for how often Gaga will ask the crowd to raise their hands. TikTok personality and singer Brittany Broski guessed that Mother Monster would ask 15 times, while Bob’s partner, Jacob Ritts, said she’d make the request 131 times. “I was gonna say 45 [times],” Bob offered.
After a series of clips from the show, wherein Gaga performed songs including “LoveDrug,” “Poker Face” and “Paparazzi,” Bob appeared back on camera to reveal that the singer asked her fans to put their hands in the air a whopping 88 times. “I did include the four times that she sang it in the song ‘Applause,’ to be fair,” Bob said with a laugh. “Make sure your arms are rested before you go see Mayhem.”
Fans looking to throw their hands up at one of Gaga’s forthcoming shows still have plenty of opportunities to do so. Mother Monster is performing two Mayhem Ball shows in Seattle on Thursday (Aug. 7) and Saturday (Aug. 9), before heading to New York City for a six-date mini-residency at Madison Square Garden starting on Aug. 22. The tour will reach Miami, Toronto and Chicago in the coming months before Gaga heads overseas for the European leg of her tour.
Check out Bob the Drag Queen’s Mayhem Ball TikTok below: