Hello Internet!!
And welcome to behind the meme!
Today we have a look at the Italian Hand!
Grazie!
To each and every single one of my amazing viewers who suggested a video on this topic.
This is one of those memes that has seemingly come out of nowhere and taken the internet
by storm!
As always your comments are very helpful and appreciated so Grazie!
You guys wanted it now you have it!
Here we go!!!
Now let me ask you this question, when you think of Italy and Italian people what are
some of the first things that come to your mind?
Well…if you’re anything like me it’s plumbers, mushrooms, and a princess who seems
to a knack for being kidnapped by giant turtle dudes who are douches.
Listen…I lived a pretty sheltered life ok.
But other than that there are a handful of things that are commonly associated with the
Italian people.
Things like the mob, guns,pizza, James Gandofini….Like I said I lived a sheltered life.
My only window to the outside world was my tv and video games!!!
Which may be an indication to why I think a zombie apocalypse could legitly happen one
day, but that’s besides the point.
If you ask others to name some defining traits of Italian people you’ll eventually come
across the Italian hand gestures.
For some people it has become a stereotype of the Italian culture.
But why?
What does it mean?
how did this happen?
Is it normal to like the smell of your own farts?
I mean uhh…what?
uhhh…what’s that behind you?!
You see Italian people very often speak with with their hands, kinda like I’m doing right
now, but you can’t see that because this is just a voice.They often use hand and body
gestures to better emphasis what they are communicating.
In fact it is actually a vital part of their culture with numerous hand gestures having
various meanings.
According to a New York Times article that I read there are over 250 hand gestures that
Italians use in everyday conversations.
To be honest with you guys…I don’t even know if I know 250 words let alone 250 hand
gestures but thats just me.
I’m kind of a dumbass It’s almost like their language is a mix of verbal communication
as well as sign language.
One of the gestures in particular has become closely associated with the Italian people
to the point of becoming a stereotype.
Now I’m not Italian but with as much pizza as I’ve eaten in my life, I’m pretty damn
close but from everything I’ve read online supplied by real Italians, The Gesture is
used with various phrases that often communicate confusion or questioning somebody’s intention
with an undertone of anger.
It is most commonly used in a way that helps communicate the message “What do you want?”
but seems to also be used with other phrases that express similar tones and questions.
The hand gesture has always been closely associated with Italians due to their portrayal through
TV and film.
Creating a stereotype in the process for people not directly associated with the culture.
Now in 2017 with the Italian stereotype built up in many people’s minds it became the
perfect subject to have a new meme based around.
The “how Italians do things” meme has recently become very popular on social media.
The memes are primarily photo based and revolve around the stereotyped hand gesture being
used in a variety of ways that normally wouldn’t require the formation of the fingers.
Because the person is Italian, this is the odd way that they complete their tasks.
Almost as if their fingers are stuck in that formation due to their ethnicity.
According to Know your meme the meme was first created on March 13th 2017 by Twitter user
@donny_drama who tweeted out a humorous picture of the way Italian people drink coffee.
Since the initial tweet it has been a storm of creations with many people creating their
own memes using the hand gesture and following the format of “how Italians ____”.
With Blank being virtually anything the creators can imagine.
The memes have appeared all over Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and every other mainstream
social media outlet fueling their popularity and helping it quickly become one of the most
often used memes of March.
So there you have it!
The Italian hand gesture started off as a way Italian people communicate with each other
,before being used in a humorous way within a popular meme!
But hey!
That’s the internet for you and on the internet memes are keeng!!
Thank you all so very much for watching!
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before!
I’ll catch you beautiful people next time!