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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not clap anymore

220 replies

HerstoryInTheMaking · 30/04/2020 20:24

I really liked when it first happened. A lovely clap to show appreciation. But now its morphed into who can make the most noise. People playing music, letting off fireworks.

It just feels wrong, people are dying included health staff.

Dont get me wrong I love the NHS, love the heros who are saving lives and im more than thankful but it seems to me now this has become about attention seeking and whats worse is people filming themselves clapping.

OP posts:
RufustheLanglovingreindeer · 30/04/2020 23:11

I am going to be very very disappointed if my future grandchildren are impressed by clapping

ShutUpaYourFace · 30/04/2020 23:14

PopcOrn
The care I have received in the last 10 years under the NHS has been second to non.
Yes we've had years of austerity people will argue on the cause, but overall my own experience has been very good. Clapping is to thank the NHS, it shouldn't matter who you voted for.
Many people voted Tory, does that mean we are a country of hypocrites if we clap?

redbushtea · 30/04/2020 23:18

@bigchris see this thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3886452-The-hospital-I-work-in-is-so-quiet

Comments include: "Our patients are being denied their regular treatments and interventions so we can all twiddle our thumbs and wait"

ItsGoingTibiaK · 30/04/2020 23:22

"Oh, Mother, do tell; what did Great Grandmother and Great Grandfather do during all those terrible weeks and weeks of torment back in 2020?"

"Well, dearest children, they mainly had to make their own entertainment. They had their quaint little pastimes you may have heard of - 'Netflix' and 'Zoom' - and they did spend rather a lot of their time penning lengthy, passionate complaints about others on 'The Facebook'.

"But, darling, the thing for which I will always be eternally grateful is that, despite those thousands and thousands of dreadful minutes that they were literally entombed in their homes, for almost one whole dozen of those minutes, one painful week at a time, they were able to break free of their shackles, and join with the nation to beat together their palms and tell that jolly rotten virus that it just would not beat us."

"Oh, Mother, we do so owe them a lot, don't we?"

"Yes, my child; I rather think we do."

Jammies · 30/04/2020 23:27

Each to their own. Clap or don’t clap. I don’t think people will care.

Poppinjay · 30/04/2020 23:32

Many people voted Tory, does that mean we are a country of hypocrites if we clap?

Yes.

LemonadeAndDaisyChains · 30/04/2020 23:32

Why are people taking the piss out of the poster who said they wanted to pass the stories onto their grandchildren?
Sounds like a nice sentiment to me.
Whether you're "for" clapping or not, think the pandemic is being handled well or not handled well or whatever, in years gone by this year is a gamechanger in the ways things are being done and seen and it will be looked back on.
Too many twats on here lately

TimeWastingButFun · 30/04/2020 23:32

It's a bit like Christmas, if you did it every week it would lose its magic. I think it was a really lovely idea at first, but it's also not sustainable every week - just about the time people are getting small kids to bed. Maybe we could think of something else, perhaps a little more helpful but also appreciative.

LemonadeAndDaisyChains · 30/04/2020 23:33

That comment wasn't to anyone in particular, there's been several pisstakers

TimeWastingButFun · 30/04/2020 23:39

Also, the spontaneity has gone out of this - it was originally one person's idea, meant as a one-off. Time for a new (maybe not quite so noisy) one.

TigerQueenie · 30/04/2020 23:39

I don't do it, and I'm not bothered whether people care or not.

The first one was nice, as it was a bit impromptu and just a nice gesture. Then after that it held more of a chore sort of feeling, with people complaining that it didn't cover the entire consort of key workers, and other people shaming their neighbours for not hammering shit out of pans on their doorstep.

Since that, there's numerous images of people crammed into quite small spaces to clap and cheer, which goes against the whole ethos of social distancing, and people are trying so hard to outdo one another that I'm half expecting a rocket launch any time soon to pay tribute to the NHS.

I also can't quite fathom why 8pm, as it seems to be quite a common time for people to be settling their kids to sleep.

My dog is freaked out by clapping. She doesn't mind the fireworks but the clapping and pan battering unsettles her. I quite like my dog, so I'm choosing not to stand on the doorstep doing something which upsets her for no real reason.

Ilovemypantry · 30/04/2020 23:40

@aquashiv

If you find these threads repetitive and boring yet you take the time to read them and comment?

ItsGoingTibiaK · 30/04/2020 23:42

@LemonadeAndDaisyChains

That comment wasn't to anyone in particular, there's been several pisstakers

I'll take one for team pisstaker.

Because it was just so FUCKING POMPOUS. That's why. Clapping for a minute a week has literally the same practical benefit as doing absolutely fuck all. Would you seriously want to pass that down through the generations as your legacy? That once a week, you took three steps outside your front door and applauded people who weren't even there to receive the applause. And that you smugly eyed your neighbours as though you were all doing some actual good, while sniffily looking at the closed front doors and judging those occupants that simply weren't patriotic enough to bother?

And all wrapped up in the pseudo-patriotic, forever England, fight them on the beaches, village green preservation society language.

That's why.

(And, you know, I've got nothing else to do for another whole week until 8pm next Thursday, so why not?)

LemonadeAndDaisyChains · 30/04/2020 23:45

Clapping for a minute a week has literally the same practical benefit as doing absolutely fuck all. Would you seriously want to pass that down through the generations as your legacy?

Why not just see it as something that people did, if they wanted to?
Something you can join in with, or not join in with.
This year so far is a part of history which will be talked about in the future whether you agree with clapping or don't agree with clapping.

Poppinjay · 30/04/2020 23:49

Why not just see it as something that people did, if they wanted to?

Maybe because it's meaningless on the whole and hypocritical in many cases. It disturbs lots of people, including the NHS keyworkers who are trying to sleep or whose pets are terrified of the fireworks.

Batmannequin · 30/04/2020 23:50

I don't see a problem with it in principle. What I do have a problem with is people crowding together standing shoulder to shoulder, no PPE or social distancing to support the NHS. It borders on ridiculous that the can't see the hypocrisy in their actions.

ItsGoingTibiaK · 30/04/2020 23:52

Also, the spontaneity has gone out of this - it was originally one person's idea, meant as a one-off. Time for a new (maybe not quite so noisy) one.

Don't tell Boris, but we nicked it wholesale from, shhh, Europe. Italy and Spain were doing it before we were even in lockdown.

Popc0rn · 01/05/2020 00:04

@ShutUpaYourFace

Yes, that's my honest opinion. Either a hypocrite or very uninformed.

I'm glad that you've had a good experience of the NHS in the last ten years. I am proud to work for it and it's sad to see it slowly being chipped away.

EasyPleasey · 01/05/2020 00:15

It makes me cringe. I cant imagine anyone being glad about my neighbour shouting and waving his beer can around on his balcony at 8pm every Thursday.

isitspringyet · 01/05/2020 00:17

Agree with OP and thanks to my twat neighbours I have tinnitus due to their thoughtful loud OTT fireworks or whatever they let off it was a series of really loud bangs no whizzing just explosion of bangs

LambsyDivey · 01/05/2020 00:25

I'm surprised people are bent out of shape about this--if you don't want to clap, don't clap! I'm in NYC and we clap every night, but honestly, I have no idea how many health care workers hear it, and I'm not always revved up, but I'm also grateful for it. Everyone is trapped in their tiny apartments and nobody knows when life will ever get back to normal, and it's really helpful to see people come to their windows and out on their balconies and to be reassured that we're all still here.

1forAll74 · 01/05/2020 00:30

I don't think anyone would have thought about all this clapping and singing etc, if they had not seen it done in Italy many weeks ago. People there, were just on their balconies clapping and sometimes singing, so it's all a copy of that I think.

Jezebel101 · 01/05/2020 00:38

It all sounds a bit celebratory, which could be seen as a positive in a time of gloom, or inappropriate when people are dying in their hundreds daily. I'd tend towards the latter, and I'm sure NHS staff would prefer proper PPE to applause and pot banging.

In Ireland there was the Shine A Light thing where people lit all their houses and flashed torches, as it was decided it was probably better not to wake up babies and kids with noise.

It's the gesture that counts, it shouldn't be about decibels and it shouldn't be so tediously policed by the self-appointed arbitors of appreciation. Morons to a (wo)man, all of them.

PumpkinP · 01/05/2020 00:42

Ive never clapped, it’s way too cringey for me, I was out cleaning the back garden when they did it tonight and it honestly seemed like a competition of who could clap for the loudest and longest. Pots, pans, fire works, very strange. And for those that say no one else Will care if you don’t clap, well they regularly Shame certain roads for not clapping on my local fb page.

Rubybluesy · 01/05/2020 00:46

Not another one...Hmm

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