It's not like it's a ribbon mic. (DBO)

by Funkmon , Saturday, December 19, 2015, 15:19 (3261 days ago) @ Pyromancy

I do it regularly. While I MOSTLY tap my pop filter arm which is attached to the stand for my good microphone, which is enough to register clearly on a waveform, the one that came with the computer I got for Christmas in 1997 I tap on directly. So far it's 18 years and it still works fine.

I would wager that 100% of the time that if you don't know not to tap on the microphone that YOU bought, you're fine. I've never even heard of a non ribbon microphone being hurt by tapping, though it could blow speakers. Normally people do the fingernail test in my experience, but that doesn't work with some cheap built in mics. Hence tapping. Also, it's not like he is going to tap like a jackhammer.