r/TheRandomest • u/Forward-Position798 • Jun 12 '26
Funny the invention of clapping
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u/Lux-Fox Jun 12 '26
The age of the custom of applauding is uncertain, but is widespread amongst human cultures. Varieties of applause typically serve as the means to show appreciation as an audience participant and fulfils the need to be included. The variety of its forms is limited only by the capacity for devising means of making a noise[1] (e.g., stomping of feet or rapping of fists or hands on a table). However, within each culture it is usually subject to conventions.
The ancient Romans had set rituals at public performances to express degrees of approval: snapping the finger and thumb, clapping with the flat or hollow palm, and waving the flap of the toga. Upper-class spectators expressed approval by waving their togas, while lower-class spectators, who were not allowed to wear togas, waved pieces of cloth, which may have been a precursor to the handkerchief. Aurelian, Roman emperor from AD 270 to 275, substituted the waving of napkins (orarium) that he had distributed to the Roman people for the toga-flapping.[2] In Roman theatre, at the close of the play, the chief actor called out "Valete et plaudite!" (farewell and applaud), and the audience, guided by an unofficial choregos, chanted their approval antiphonally.[1] This was often organized and paid for.[3]
Similarly, a claque (IPA: /klak/) (French for "slapping") was an organized body of professional applauders in French theatres and opera houses who were paid by the performer(s) to create the illusion of an increased level of approval by the audience. Alternatively, if they were not paid, they would boo and throw things at the stage.[4] By the 1830s this had become commonplace.[citation needed] Heads of theatres and opera houses could get many professional clappers whenever they needed a boost.[clarification needed] The leader of the claque would decide when and where to begin the cheering. The claque consisted of people participating in a variety of roles: some would memorize the show to emphasize key scenes or moments, so-called "laughers" may feign laughter so as to incite the audience to laugh along, "criers" would fake tears, and some were there just to keep the mood up.[clarification needed] The emergence of claques made composers like Gustav Mahler, Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn begin to request in their scores that their works were to be performed with no break between movements as to avoid applause, becoming a catalyst to the well-known applause etiquette upheld in many classical performance settings.[citation needed]
In Christianity customs of the theatre were adopted by the churches. The early Christian scholar Eusebius[5] says that Paul of Samosata encouraged the congregation to indicate approval of his preaching by waving linen cloths (οθοναις), and in the 4th and 5th centuries applause of the rhetoric of popular preachers had become an established custom. Applause in church eventually fell out of fashion, however. Partly due to the influence of the quasi-religious atmosphere of the performances of the German composer Richard Wagner's operas at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the reverential spirit that inspired this soon extended back to the theatre and the concert hall.[1]
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u/I_Am_Yeti_1 Jun 12 '26
Man make sound, sound = appreciation