Why do people get so upset when they see a Standing O?

The Producer's Perspective: The always Smart ‘N Snarky John Simon wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago airing his disgust about the ubiquitous standing ovation. (If you don’t know JS, the quick intro is that he was quite a respected critic for a whole bunch of publications until he was fired from his Bloomberg post in 2010. The whispers in Shubert Alley were that he was dismissed for being too “mean”. That’s a subjective opinion, of course. I always thought his reviews were fun, although I do seem to recall a write-up for Footloose where he he mocked the ensemble for being unattractive.)