There Is an Actual Movement to Replace Applause with Jazz Hands

last updated 31 July 2021

On Tuesday, The National Union of Students (NUS) Women's Campaign announced that it would be banning clapping at their feminism conference in Solihull, England, in favor of using "jazz hands" instead.

Some delegates are requesting that we move to jazz hands rather than clapping, as it's triggering anxiety. Please be mindful! #nuswomen15March 24, 2015

The initial request came from the Oxford University Student Union's Women's Campaign, in order to avoid provoking stress in some of the attending members.

@nuswomcam please can we ask people to stop clapping but do feminist jazz hands? it's triggering some peoples' anxiety. thank you!March 24, 2015

Whooping at the conference was discouraged for similar reasons.

Whooping is fun for some, but can be super inaccessible for others, so please try not to whoop! Jazz hands work just as well #nuswomen15March 24, 2015

The initial reaction to the motion on social media was predominantly of a...how shall we say...mocking nature.

What about attendees with no hands, @nuswomcam?? #JazzHands are inaccessible to those people. This seems very problematic and exclusionary.March 24, 2015

Some delegates are requesting that we move to jazz hands rather than clapping, as it's triggering anxiety. Please be mindful! #nuswomen15March 24, 2015

Right, I try to create a safe space at my lectures. No clapping--only jazz hands.And no hissing--that marginalizes people with lisps. @NeroMarch 24, 2015

And some believed the regulation undermined the idea of feminism altogether.

Nothing says empowered like a fear of applause. Way to go, ladies! #nuswomen15March 24, 2015

"Jazz hands are used throughout NUS in place of clapping as a way to show appreciation of someone's point without interrupting or causing disturbance, as it can create anxiety," Nona Buckley-Irvine, the general secretary of the London School of Economics Students' Union, told the BBC (opens in new tab). "I'm relatively new to this and it did feel odd at first, but once you've used jazz hands a couple of times it becomes a genuinely nice way to show solidarity with a point and it does add to creating a more inclusive atmosphere."

Just...leavin' this here.

You should also check out:

The New Hollywood It Bag Looks Like a Capri Sun and Costs $1,600 (opens in new tab)

5 Beauty Hacks You've Definitely Never Heard of Before (opens in new tab)

10 Very Serious, Very Important* Ways to Spend Your Tax Return (opens in new tab)

My writing has regularly appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, Salon, VICE, Guernica, The New York Observer, BuzzFeed, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Esquire, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and many more publications.

I was previously the Senior News Editor at Best Life Online and the Viral Content Editor in the Newsroom of Hearst Digital Media. My portfolio consists of a vast and diverse body of work that includes personal essays, lifestyle articles, breaking news posts, and viral content. My areas of expertise, however, are Russia, sex and relationships, and mental wellness.