Why do movie-goers feel the obligation to fucking clap? Like most people, I went and saw LotR #3 yesterday. It was a matinee showing, but was a pretty jammed pack theater. I can at least tolerate clapping at the beginning and ending of a movie, but there are just some pricks who think that they're the only fucking people in the building and forget that there are other people in the audience who aren't very enthusiastic about listening to flesh slapping flesh. Fucking simians. Unlike previous movie experiences, what really irked me this time was that there seemed to be some fucking person sitting to the back of me who would always try to initiate a clapping in the audience. There were almost half a dozen scenes at the end of LotR (after the ring is thrown into the volcano...but you already knew that so no spoiler tag needed) where this fucking guy thinks that the movie is over and claps just ONCE. I don't know if you've ever noticed how clapping arises in an audience, but it's usually one of two ways. One is that it's obvious, i.e. the end of a play/musical where it's obligatory. The second way that claps arise is during the times when people don't know if it's appropriate to clap or not. In this situation, there is an initiator and followers. Followers are the ones who have their hands apart, almost ready to clap but look around to see if anyone else is clapping before they start. Most people are followers. Then there's the Initiator who also wants to clap, but only claps ONCE at a medium volume thinking that "if it's not an appropriate time to clap, maybe people won't hear me. If it is appropriate [the Followers] will respond to my clapping." And just like the blind leading the blind, the Initiator claps, the Followers reenforce and noise slowly builds up. From there, there are the other people who had not planned on clapping, but upon hearing "everyone else" doing it, they start doing it too. If you ever observe a crowd, this is how standing ovations happen to.

Anyway, my little discourse into social behavior describes the situation at the theater I was at, except that the Initiator in my case was either doing it on purpose, or really wanted the movie to be over, or just a dumbass. Everyone else who clapped was just a dumbass.

I liked the movie though; definitely a contender for an Oscar.