Gravity Gets Gaga, Again! Watch Another Onstage Wipeout!

Lady Gaga has been putting her poker face to use, tumble after tumble.

During a recent performance in Atlanta on her Monster Ball tour, Gaga was singing “Poker Face” when she threw down some clothing and took one step forward, leading to a slippery fall and then a total face plant.

Without missing a beat or looking upset, Gaga jumped up and kept going. No injury was reported.

It’s easy to understand why she fell. High heeled shoes + dancing from piano benches and across articles of clothing = a broken ankle ready to happen.

However, we wondered why it’s just so funny (eh-hem) for some people to watch.

William F. Fry, a psychiatrist and laughter researcher at Stanford University has an answer to why we laugh when people fall.

As Stanford told The Scientific American, the first aspect that colors our sense of humor has to do with “play frame.” This is when a real-life event is placed into a non-serious context, that allows for an atypical physiological reaction. Watching Gaga (and her long yellow wig) face plant on a YouTube video with instant replay = play frame.

Another factor lies in the incongruity of the “punch line.” We don’t expect Lady Gaga to fall while dancing, so it’s sort of funny.

And lastly, Fry says, when we take a spill, there are neurons in our brains that fire to speed up a reaction. When we watch a gravity-bound Gaga, the same neurons ignite, but are only “tickled” because we aren’t really falling. This could also cause us to laugh.

Time to put all that to test. Watch Gaga going down, here: