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Transcript

Mini: Clapping · Why We Do What We Do

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  You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome to Why we do
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  what we do? A mini This is a special format we are trying out.
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  I'm your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. I said my name
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  after I introduce what we're doing. So anyway, Yeah, we're going to
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  do these short, sort of quick content deliveries of topics that we felt like
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  we could sort of hash out in just fifteen minutes rather than spend an hour
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  talking about something, and so we should just jump right into it. Today
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  we are talking about clapping. Yes, clapping. So it's a weird thing
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  when you think about it, right, right, this is interesting tradition where
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  we slot parts of our body together, either out of obligation, appreciation,
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  ceremony, or some other symbolic reason. And why do we do this?
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  Yeah? I mean, are we just constantly high fiving ourselves because that's what
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  it feels like. That's a question I have. But the first thing that
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  under is the conditions under which we clap. That is in a form of
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  tribute. Typically clapping is used as a form of tribute or celebration for something
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  that is occurring. Yeah, so these high authority figures required tributes from conquered
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  peoples and territories, usually in the form of food or goods. That a
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  tribute in general is a form of showing respect, deference, gratitude, or
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  recognition, and where it was historically used to symbolically represent acknowledgment to an authority
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  figure, it has also been used to show respect in a similar manner.
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  So what was taken by force is now given voluntarily. So difficult which to
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  say occurred first or if the reasons were sort of always mixed and occurred together.
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  But that's sort of the reasons that this sort of tribute, like symbolic
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  gesture began and evolved. Right. So actually clackers were people hired just to
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  react to presentations. I love that they were plants, right, yeah,
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  And they were paid to laugh, cry, shout or applod as instructed,
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  And so they were used in theaters to influence the reaction of the crowd,
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  to influence judges in ancient Greece to choose a particular performance. And clackers were
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  hired to influence politics and in courts of law to sway judge and jury.
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  So it's nice to know that, like something's never change, yeah, right,
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  the sort of the political theater of let's try to undermine the process and
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  law and representation by the people who have the most amount of resources can hire
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  other people to make those people look good. Right, I wonder to what
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  degree it started as like something nefarious or like it evolved into that, right,
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  Like, I wonder if first it was like, oh, we want
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  to make sure that the performers feel good, so we're going to go ahead
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  and set this up. Then it turned into oh, yeah, we want
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  to make sure that we sway the sway the vote, you know. So
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  yeah, So the Romans applauded with clapping for speeches and for dramatic performances whenever
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  they enjoyed them. So it's a sign of sort of respect for those and
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  recognition and their appreciation for that performance. Now, of course, in modern
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  times, clapping is used ceremoniously in many forms of recognition because of the consistent
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  representation of clapping. A lack of clapping is also a statement that's there's nothing
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  worse than like doing a presentation or speaking or or and then there's just no
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  reaction that is that is a horrible feeling. Yeah, the invention of clapping
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  meant that silence became in a message. Yes, so clapping or applauding is
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  one of the most widely recognized forms of communication, not like necessarily the most,
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  but it's up there, you know, around the entire world, and
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  is represented in every single culture in one way or another. Now, of
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  course, at some point in certain civilizations, women were taught to gently tap
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  one palm against a stationary second palm as the aggressive movement of both hands was
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  quote unladylike. And it sounds like that's the birth of the golf clap.
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  Yeah, basically, yeah, that's what that was. So sexism made its
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  way all the way to clapping somehow wild, I know. So we've we've
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  already sort of described sort of how this has evolved and what it looks like
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  in different places around the world. We're going to take a quick advertisement break
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  because you know we can, and then want to pay the bills and that
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  sort of thing. Yeah, and we'll be right back to talk about why
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  this actually happens. Okay, So, yes, we slapped fleshy parts of
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  our body together to make a loud sound in these various circumstances. But why
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  though, Yeah, so, as we said before, it's a form of
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  tribute it's a form of recognition. It's a form of hey, like,
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  you have done a thing that I enjoy, so I'm going to go ahead
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  and recognize you for that. But why clapping specifically, simply because there's one
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  of the loudest, easiest ways to make noise with our bodies. If we
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  were giant crickets, we would certainly be rubbing our leathery wings together to make
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  a sonorous chirping sound instead. Also, I don't like the idea of us
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  being giant crickets. That feels that feels gross. It does feel a little
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  unnerving. But yeah, no, this is actually because I was wondering this.
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  This is part of the reason that I chose this topic, is thinking
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  about why this is such a weird tradition, like that somebody says or does
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  something and then we slap parts of our body together. And I was thinking
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  about it, and like, actually, you know, it does kind of
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  make sense that the loudest sounds that we can make with the least amount of
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  effort is to hit parts of our body together, and one of the parts
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  of our body best suited to that is our hands. So we make a
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  nice loud, percussive staccato sound that we can easily repeat with low effort,
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  and it communicates a message loudly and broadly that a lot of people can do
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  repeatedly. Also, so it can happen very fast. So in fact,
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  if you think about it, the other loudest sounds that we can make are
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  usually with our voices and to that effect, whistling, shouting, bravo.
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  And what was once hear him, hear him, which has now evolved to
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  hear here to particularly to get the attention of someone who wasn't listening, or
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  all these other ways of making noise to as a tribute to show respect,
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  et cetera. But obviously the sort of yelling, shouting and straining which people
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  would do, but it's more effortful. You can only do it for so
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  long. It's not going to be as a nice staccato short sound most of
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  the time. Yeah. I Also, anytime I hear somebody or see something
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  in a movie or something where it says here here or hear him, hear
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  him, I always think of robinhood men and tites where he goes let me
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  your ears, and everybody throws their ears at him, which is the dumbest
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  gag in the world. But it's hilarious. It makes me laugh every single
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  time for sure. Well, Melrug has been on a sort of a penny
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  kick of jokes this morning in our episode recording. Yeah, it's been fun.
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  Now in places where it works to do so, one might also stomp
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  their feet to make the noise and so like, depending on kind of maybe
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  the flooring or whatever, it might look like stomping your feet might produce a
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  large sound, but clapping remains one of the easiest and most convenient ways to
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  make a ton of noise, and noise is a tribute to someone for something.
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  One thing I think of is Queen really got this right with we will
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  rock you. Stomp stomp, clap, stomp, stomp, clap. It
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  really works. It's very effective. Yeah, And also if you're not familar,
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  you're the deaf community has an applause as well, and they don't clap
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  because they have a sign for applause and it's like they it looks like jazz
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  hands, so like they'll do that, they'll shake their hands like that,
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  you know, and it's kind of a cool. It's kind of a cool
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  tribute when when sound is not necessarily as important that in that community. I
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  love that you included that. Yeah, absolutely, because you get a similar
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  effect of like a visual representation of showing a sort of tribute. That's a
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  novel way of displaying it. And again it's relatively low effort, and just
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  as you said, sort of hands out to the side, sort of a
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  back and forth sort of wiggle if you will. Yeah, sort of get
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  that jazz hands effect. Yeah, I love it. I love it.
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  There's also, of course, people will do snaps to show yeah, sort
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  of Yeah, you can imagine that would make the sound yourself if you want
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  to. And those I think I didn't look this up, but I think
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  they're commonly used in sort of quieter settings where you're not trying to make a
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  ton of noise, but you similar effect. Yeah. Yeah, if you're
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  a west side story and you like sort of doing lunges toward another group of
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  people, do that's a fight signal? Oh yeah, you're right, you're
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  right, that's conflict. That's not tribute. That's a good point. So
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  anyway, snaps another version of slapping skin together to make some sound. So
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  if slapping skin has bothered you tremendously, and the fact that it is keep
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  repeating that term over and over again. Then that's okay because I think we're
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  at a point to go ahead and wrap up this topic. Do you have
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  anything else to add to clapping? I actually don't. So you know,
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  we live in a world in an audio format where we don't get to hear
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  your clapping. So if you can leave us a review as a form of
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  clapping, or if you just leave us a review and say clap, clap,
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  clap, that would be great for us too. So we're totally down
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  for that. Love that. Yes, you can join us on Patreon,
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  like and subscribe, tell a friend, email us to tell us more about
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  why you clap at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com. You can also reach us
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  in all the non neo Nazi leaning social media websites because we don't exist on
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  those platforms. Then we'll respond to you if you reach out to us there.
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  But I think that's all I have. Do you have anything else to
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  say about clapping? Nope, that's all I got today? All right,
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  thank you for joining us. Join us next time for another mini This is
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  Abraham and this is Shame. We're out. See yea, you've been listening
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  to we do what we do You can learn more about this and other episodes
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  by going to WWD WWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we
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  hope you have an awesome day.