Via Frank Rich's column, a USA Today article on the growing prominence of the terrorist fist-jab greeting in business circles that scores very high on the unintentional comedy scale. If Obama wins, I think this could wind up being like JFK and men's hats.
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The Fist-Bump Era
27 Jul 2008 12:07 pm
Comments (27)
I'd love to see Obama bring back old-timey hats. I bet he'd look great in them.
My girlfriend and I started doing the fist-bump ironically a couple of years ago and now it's just normal to us. It's actually kind of sweet.
just based on my own experience, it was already coming before then ... I'd see it more as a tipping point than an initiator.
I've been fist bumping for years- that's how hockey players congratulate each other, you can't give a high-five when wearing hockey gloves. The terrorists from Canuckistan are a grave threat to our way of life.
Actually the JFK and decline in mens' hat fashion is a myth. Check out snopes.com. However, I have noticed a widespread use of the 'terrorist fist bump' with a verbal description an an intentional air of irony.
Check out the early James Bond flicks. 007 still wears a hat. Hats didn't become completely uncool until The Beatles hit in late 63.
"terrorist fist-jab". Please stop using this phrase, it's just stupid, and counterproductive.
I've started doing the occasional tfj in the spirit of ironic amusement--me, George HW Bush, various little boys, Kay Bailey Hutchison, all fist-bumping together.
"terrorist fist-jab". Please stop using this phrase, it's just stupid, and counterproductive.
I disagree 100%. I can't think of a better meme to express the proper contempt for the last eight years of GOP fear-mongering and xenophobic demagoguery than the frequent public performance of the "terrorist fist-jab."
Actually, the connection with JFK and hats seems apropos. Just as JFK not wearing a hat for his inauguration speech (though he did wear one earlier/later that day) didn't start a trend but is reflective of a trend that had already become quite widespread throughout the cultre, the Obamas' fist bump merely mirrors a trend that is already quite common, apparently even becoming more popular even in the business world. Similarly to JFK, in forty years, many people will mis-remember the Obama fist bump as groundbreaking, when in fact it was quite run of the mill.
When I hear people using the "terrorist fist jab" formulation, it's always in an ironic context. It's a way of saying "Geez, those people are morons."
In the picture at the USA Today article, it looks like GW Bush is forcing the kid to give him a "terrorist fist bump". What's up with that?
Well, most men and a lot of women under the age of 30 already use the bump as a conventional greeting or sign of encouragement. It's just coming into its own as a trend, as a commenter above said.
Well, most men and a lot of women under the age of 30 already use the bump as a conventional greeting or sign of encouragement. It's just coming into its own as a trend, as a commenter above said.
I strictly refuse to fist bump with anyone, even ironically.
Before anyone had to tell me, I know on some people (fortyish white male) it just looks silly.
The thing about the bumping, or dapping, is that anyone who is even the least bit amazed or dismayed or unknowing about it quite literally has not been around any remotely hip person in the past, say, fifteen years. By remotely hip, I mean ten year old girls, gas pump jockeys, fraternity members, sales people . . . so, for the knowing majority now to universally refer to it as terrorist fist jab is justly ironic as reporters, pundits, and some politicians remain forever outside the circle.
I find the fist bump haters to be kind of amusing. I think it's somewhat inappropriate as a greeting in the wrong context (white businessmen just look silly), but as a congratulatory gesture, anyone can do it without generating unintentional comedy.
Isn't this fist bump hating just another variant of that Brad deLong standby, the columnist decrying the menace of pizza with jalapenos on it? It's a pathetic whine that the world is changing, and, damnit, it shouldn't, because the old ways (where I was number one) were best.
It's just one more in the long line of moronic conservative rants against change: the evils of the 60s, rock music, giving women the vote, regulating football, banning slavery, and so on and so on.
And as usual, there will be GOP whores willing to provide supposedly reasonable and rational arguments for why the fist bump is a terrible menace. (
"Unlike the traditional handshake, it doesn't allow you to weigh the quality of the person you are meeting"?
That old standby - "It's unAmerican"?
"It requires more co-ordination than a handshake, so it is biased against the handicapped"?, since we all know the GOP are all about helping the handicapped.
)
Were I a mixologist, I'd be trying to invent a drink called the Terrorist Fist Jab right about now. No idea what would be in it. Thoughts?
Were I a mixologist, I'd be trying to invent a drink called the Terrorist Fist Jab right about now.
Irish car bomb but after you slam it you ululate and scream "Allah akbar" and punch the person to your right with a jab.
About 20 years ago, the Seattle comedy show Almost Live had a recurring segment "High Fiving White Guys" mocking the over-use of the high five by the painfully unhip.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EQXqEAYHudQ
Time for "Fist Bumping White Guys", I guess.
I wonder if Cameron will "fist-bump" John now that she's turned back into a real Terminator.
Naah.
I know since that incident my girlfriend and I do it more than we did before, and I usually say "Let's embolden some terrorists!" as we do it.
hey hipster crackers
dabbing is for bros not hos
Good luck keeping white people from doing it.
No, Obama's "JFK hat" contribution will be the abolition of the necktie. Good riddance.
I'm mad at Obama (although I've forgiven him for worse) for mainstreaming the pound. Until that television broadcast it was the special property of black people, Scrubs fans, and my Korean students and I.
Comments closed August 10, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
That's apocryphal
Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | July 27, 2008 12:20 PM