While in high school I used to go to a folk club in Paris called “L’Abbaye” where the
audience snapped their fingers instead of clapping for the performers.
As my girlfriend at the time said the first time I took her there:
“That’s so bogus.” I had that same feeling just now when I saw on the cover of this week’s Greensboro Rhino Times
a photo of the Guilford County Board of Education meeting (sorry, not
available online). It shows the crowd with their hands raised above
their heads. The photo caption explains that the board “asks people to
indicate their support of a speaker by waving their arms in the air
rather than clapping.”