"Thumbs-Up": When a (universally-understood) positive gesture goes BAD [View all]

[Sugar Smack]

I'm a child of the seventies. All of us in America, everyone with a thumb, expressed approval & enthusiasm with the signal. There are so many pics from that time onward indicating joy or sarcasm from children and adults of every background. I myself was making the gesture up until, I don't know, 3 years ago?

I loathe it now. I've lost all regard for the "thumbs up". I have no use for it. I've seen too, too many pictures of pasty rich powerful ugly nasty cruel old men using it. And their slimy, mean smiles. It feels like they're giving me the finger.

Sometimes, this is how it's done, I think: working on people's heads, turning the meaning of something around completely. Incidentally, if I wanted to destroy another nation from within, I'd start with its very language, and I think this is no different.