An Incomplete List of Things People Clap for, in Increasing Order of Stupidity

An Incomplete List of Things People Clap for, in Increasing Order of Stupidity

  • Rock Concerts
    Admittedly, the band is right there and they can hear your applause, so this one isn’t horrendously dumb. However, everyone knows they’re going to do an encore and it doesn’t actually have anything to do with how much you cheer. You’re not fooling anyone, popular music band!

  • Airplane Landings
    Listen, I too am ecstatic that we didn’t plummet out of the sky during our flight.1 But this is the way things are supposed to work. It’s the way things do work, tens of thousands of times each day. You don’t applaud when your cab driver gets you to your meeting, nor when the elevator reaches your floor.

  • Movies
    Unless you’re at a film festival, no one involved in the making of the film is present. So, to whom exactly are you showing your appreciation? The surly teenager working the projector could not care less.

  • Sunsets
    I just can’t even I mean what the UGH!


Footnotes:

  1. Or simply disappear altogether, for that matter. ↩︎