clap your hands say WHAT?

I just watched the Oscars last night, like millions of other people around the country. Although I wasn't aware of it until today, there was something else a lot of people were talking about, besides the craziness around announcing Moonlight as Best Picture.

gif via perezhilton.com

What is up with Nicole Kidman's strange clapping style? It's pretty bizarre to see a person not making full contact with their hands, and we've all seen enough clapping emojis to know what it's supposed to look like. I have my own theory about what is happening here, and it doesn't have to do with Nicole Kidman being a weirdo.

It looks to me like this is someone who is trying to protect expensive diamond rings. She was dripping in diamonds last night! Most celebrities borrow jewelry from high-end luxury brands, usually their most epic aspirational pieces (did you see Ruth Negga's tiara??). I know if I had thousands, or millons, of dollars worth of diamonds on my hands, I'd be feeling pretty funny about banging them together too. You can see how she self-consciously twists the ring around her finger as it's getting lopsided from the awkward clapping.

What does this mean for the common person? Even if you don't have millions of dollars worth of diamonds, you might own an eternity band or a ring with an embossed pattern on the shank. To protect them from getting banged up during clapping, adopt a different technique and offset your palms so they are perpendicular. It doesn't look so awkward and you can still clap heartily. Here's looking at you, Nicole...thanks for the teaching moment.

image via wikihow.com