Citizen Kane Clapping

Submission 40,405

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About

Citizen Kane Clapping refers to a memorable moment from the 1941 dramatic film Citizen Kane of the titualr character clapping in anger. The clip has since been used as reaction GIF online meant to express intense pleasure.

Origin

On September 5th, 1941, the film Citizen Kane premiered in the United States.^[1] In the film, Charles Foster Kane (portrayed by Orson Welles) watches his wife Susan Alexander (portrayed by Dorothy Comingore) perform an opera. As the audience grows dissatisfied with her performance, Kane begins clapping vigorously and angrily (shown below, left).

The earliest recorded use of the Citizen Kane GIF was published by tackyracoons^[2] user Bunk Strutts who posted the GIF on November 23rd, 2007 (shown below, right).

Spread

The following year, on October 6th, 2008, an anonymous 4chan user in the /tg/ forum posted the GIF.^[3]

Two years later, YouTuber karlpirksaar posted a 10-hour video of the clip. The post received more than 97,000 views in eight years (shown below).

Shia LaBeouf Clapping

On October 21st, 2014, singer and musician released the song "Shia LaBeouf" named after actor Shia LaBeouf. That day, the singer uploaded a video for the song, receiving more than 60 million views in five years (shown below, left). Toward the end of the music video, LaBeouf parodies the Citizen Kane clap.

The following day, a GIF of LaBeouf's version was uploaded to GIPHY (shown below, right).^[4]