Ever since he was a child, Dalton Meyer has cultivated a unique hobby — speed clapping.
As the name suggests, speed clapping is the practice of using techniques to clap as quickly as possible. Like many other speed-based skills, there are those who compete to be the fastest around, and as of Oct. 31, Meyer holds that title.
Meyer is the new Guinness World Record holder for most claps in one minute — 1,140, or around 19 claps per second. He beat the previous record by 37 claps.
The Davenport resident's first exposure to speed clapping was in elementary school. He was scrolling through YouTube when he stumbled on a video of Kent French, a speed clapper once called the fastest clapper in the world. While he doesn't remember exactly why, Meyer said the video made him want to learn speed clapping, and it ended up coming naturally.
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"It came naturally to me, it was like I didn't even have to practice," Meyer said. "Really, I just for some reason knew how to do it."
After trying — and mostly failing — to teach others how to speed clap, Meyer realized it wasn't something just anyone could easily pick up. It remained a sort of party trick, with Meyer having vague thoughts of working to break the world record but not really going for it, until 2015 when he heard about wrist clapping.
Eli Bishop, who previously held the world record for 1,103 claps in one minute, developed the wrist clapping technique Meyer utilizes. Wrist clapping is when a clapper strikes their palm with their wrist and fingers, rather than just fingers to palms.
Still, it took an inspirational speech from a coworker to push Meyer to apply to Guinness World Records about breaking the record. He trained while he waited for the application to go through — making sure his form was spot-on and working on consistency and endurance, going from being able to continuously speed clap for 40 seconds to 1 minute, 10 seconds.
It took two attempts — the first ripping the skin of his wrist because of friction — to hit that record-breaking number. Meyer worked with Charm Media Group in Geneseo to make sure he recorded everything correctly, from having cameras and sound equipment set at the right distances to correctly capture real-time and slow-motion video and audio, to time stamps and statements from sound engineers.
"I was very excited, but I was afraid Guinness was going to reject it, for some reason," Meyer said. "I don't know why they would reject it, but who knows."
While Meyer officially broke the record March 12, he didn't receive confirmation from Guinness World Records until Halloween. He was with a friend when he received the email that started with the phrase "We are thrilled," and said they had a celebration in the driveway before he informed others he'd been recognized for breaking the record.
"When I read the whole email, I was freaking out — I was like shaking; there was so much adrenaline," Meyer said.
Now that Meyer holds the world record, he's determined to defend it and, like the man who started him on this journey, be named the fastest clapper in the world. He said he expected Bishop to try to beat his numbers and hoped to turn the back-and-forth into a friendly competition, with each trying to one-up each other.
However, clapping isn't a full-time job — the 20-year-old is working on finding a career he loves while taking in the fulfillment of a dream.
"It's just like a little hobby," Meyer said. "I guess the most you can get out of it is I guess a title and attention."
