What's Bugging Tammy?
Tammy Hackfort, Contributing Columnist
Welcome back folks. Today I'd like to talk about something that is more ridiculous than it is obnoxious-something more annoying than it is bothersome. That something is clapping.
We do it to show approval, agreement, or otherwise general excitement about a single event. In this, the 21st century, I ask you, is clapping the best thing we can do to show our emotions?
If you think about it, clapping is nothing more than slapping one of your body's limbs against another. We don't slap any other body parts together and the thought of doing so is so bizarre, even in theory, it is almost inconceivable.
This leads me to believe that clapping hands together is equally ludicrous only blanketed by hundreds of years of social immunity.
In short, clapping is one of the most barbaric ancient forms of communication in practice [hand clapping scholars speculate that this skill was already acquired by biblical times and others argue that it is instinctive at birth.
It has been documented that old Roman Emperor Nero was such a bad singer that the court paid Alexandrian youth to applause for him-this is speculated to be the first time clapping was used for entertainment purposes.
Clapping is used in other traditions for other, less cheerful, purposes like in Tibet where it is used to shoo away evil spirits].
Clapping's social acceptability makes me wonder about the vigilance of society in general. What other things do we do for no real reason other than tradition?
To all you entrepreneurs out there, I challenge you to come up with a marketable alternative-it's about time capitalism cashed in on our most spontaneous moments of approval.