What does "antelope slapping" mean (context in body)? Is it some kind of idiom or euphemism?

Solution 1:

I wonder if this is a variant on/corruption of "yak shaving" made up by the author of that article.

The first definition could refer to the sort of apparently-unnecessary-but-actually-required roundabout work often associated with complex tasks:

Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing you to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows you to solve a larger problem.

Alternately, if we're taking "unnecessary antelope slapping" at face value, the second definition could apply:

A less useful activity done consciously or subconsciously to procrastinate about a larger but more useful task

A second possibility is that it's nonsense. I can't find any references to the term elsewhere, and the absurdist references to more literal antelope-slapping ("One we want to slap into the ground like an unruly Kudu [a type of antelope] that’s had one too many ginger ales.") suggest that it might be nonsense. It's certainly not a term in common usage anywhere.