Beyoncé has stood the test of time as one of the hardest-working performers in the industry. In true Virgo fashion, she's a total perfectionist and wants things done exactly the way she plans — down to the last detail. She'll notice if something is off, and she won't hold back on calling it out.
We've seen this happen during her 2009 world tour, where a cue was missed to turn off the lights. As the professional she is, she continues to hit her marks on the dance break to her song "Diva," but tries to signal that something is amiss by ad-libbing "Lights!" and "Somebody's gettin' fired!" — which has lived on in internet fame all these years later.
Another staple of Queen B's stage presence is the fan that's always blasting to create an ethereal breeze that we see her basking in on stage. The fan is an essential part of the entire production.
That's why, when I saw this TikTok of her singing "1+1" and gesturing to the fan (in multiple ways) to signal to her crew that it needed to be turned on, I was screaming internally. How could they not KNOW?! First, she tried a subtle signal to hint about the mistake, but it was to no avail.
The stage crew misses this, perhaps because they're too mesmerized by her dazzling brilliance, and the queen was not having it. She then pointed AT a crew member to draw their attention to the issue. Imagine Beyoncé pointing at you because she's mad. I feel like I would simply evaporate from existence on the spot.
She then points at the fan. Surely, they couldn't miss the hint this time, right? Right?!
But, alas, the fan blades remained defiantly still. She even tried fanning herself in a final plea to make someone, anyone, in charge figure out what was missing.
After all of her efforts were unrecognized, she took it a step further and got improvisational with it by literally working the lyrics "Turn the fan on" into the song, which is a solid callback to "Somebody's gettin' fired!" and effectively created "1+1 (Global Warming's Version)."
After this saga, the not-so-subtle lyric change is what finally compelled the crew to get the fan going at last.
Beyoncé fans (the people kind, not the mechanical kind) in the comments know exactly how serious she is about her fans:
