π up yours, woke moralists
this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2026
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My honest opinion is that most of the cultures where the thumbs up has a history as an offensive gesture have enough Facebook and YouTube users and enough exposure to Hollywood that they understand you aren't telling them to go fuck themselves.
But if you really do need a new gesture... I dunno, the thumbs up is polysemous so there's no real one size fits all replacement. But at least in some senses you may be able to replace it with something like the international fingerspelling of O-K.
One of my eternally losing battles is being pedantic about the phrase "yea or nay." It's a hill I've died on many times before with no signs of slowing down for me.
As for your question, I love the shaka. It conveys more of a good vibe than a direct affirmative in the way the thumbs up or okay gestures do, but it's still very fun to use on people who aren't suspecting it.
If it's good, give 'em a shaka.
If it's bad, hit 'em with a shocka'
One of my eternally losing battles is being pedantic about the phrase "yea or nay."
Can I ask what is the issue/how people use it wrong? (I suspect I may be in the 'using it wrong' category...)
Edit: oh. Yay vs yea.
I use thumbs up constantly to the point where it may be compulsive... which cultures find it offensive?
In slop "never do these hand gestures in these countries!!" articles, the names that come up most often are Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria (or West Africa more broadly), LatAm, Russia, Italy (specifically the south and Sardinia), Greece, and Australia (?? I wonder if they're referring to Aboriginal cultures or something, or maybe they actually meant Austria)
I frankly find it hard to believe in any case. Some netizens from some of these regions when asked about the supposedly offensive nature of the gesture say that they have never heard of it meaning anything other than like/good/OK; and in other regions, even if the thumbs up was offensive in the past, that meaning has largely faded away in recent decades due to internationalization. I get the impression that Iran is where "thumbs up means sit on my dick" is most prevalent today, but this is just an impression.
Edit: Tangentially relevant: in Japanese Sign Language, flipping the bird means BROTHER, and a thumbs up is how you fingerspell the syllable "ta". Most of the "a" syllables in JSL fingerspelling came from the ASL manual alphabet, but ASL T looked like an obscene gesture (fig gesture) to the Japanese, so evidently they replaced it with an obscene gesture to Iranians.
thumbs up means sit on my dick"
Yuck i hope nobody has ever thought that's what i was saying
I can't see the okay symbol and not think the fash dogwhistle. Maybe the π€ they do in hawaii?
yay
nay is this oneπ
What about the peace/victory sign βοΈ
We could always bring back the peace sign β
Bonus points it pisses of Brits if you do it backwards
wait what? why's that?
It's like showing them a vaginas
The worst thing of all
Weird I thought terf island loved thinking about genitals
Yeah, but only to understand the best way to stay away from the genitals
you can always flick your tongue around in it.
And i do!
It doesnβt piss us off, itβs just similar to the middle finger.
π Has a bit of a different meaning where I come from
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
π Also means anus, or money if held with palm flat/horizontal relative to the ground
Semiotics is a fuck
Point and a smile
When you scuba dive, the π means ascend ("go up"). Have to get in the habit of doing π to signal "all good". I wouldn't sweat it though in online, English language spaces. Fwiw, I'm pretty sure even π is obscene in some cultures.
Does anyone find the π Vulcan salute offensive?
Probably Romulans
We won't meet them for a couple hundred years, it's fine
The 21st century is lousy with Tal Shiar time agents trying to prevent United Earth from coming to be
specifically what i was thinking of when saying "non sub cultural"
too obscure
Hmm, I always forget that Star Trek doesn't have the cultural cache that I imagine it does
