biyuuji:

thenewcancro-deactivated2021071:

Okay can I just - can we talk about the “finger pinch emoji” for a sec?

(I may be not 100% accurate in everything I say cause I’m writing this in a hurry and I’m not thinking things that thoroughly, so excuse my lack of coherency)

image

I get that WhatsApp is all about inclusivity. I really get it, and I appreciate it.

But am I the only Italian that feels… weird about this? Do non-Italians even know what this means?

I get it, it’s a meme. A meme that never really made me (or some of my Italian friends) laugh that much but hey, it’s literally a joke, and memes are always on the Internet temporarily to then lose their popularity. No big deal.

But I’ve been living outside of Italy for 2 years now, and it’s weird and uncomfortable when you tell people you’re Italian (because you’re literally being asked), and their only reaction is to give you that hand. It feels like they’re reducing our culture to that hand gesture and, even though most of them don’t really mean to do that, it still feels insulting.

I’ve asked people if they know what that means when they do that to me: and of course, none of them do.

And it’s not their fault, because of course they did not grow up in our culture. But if you’re going to associate me, an Italian, with than hand gesture, at least know what that means for me.

In my region (because it does change from region to region), it is mostly used for “what?” or “what are you saying?” in both a friendly and rude way, depending on the context. In other regions (or even in some parts of mine), it is used differently depending on the movement of the hand (moving it back and forth is a question; turned around on the spot is for complaining about someone standing in the way, or saying that someone’s stupid or dumb; opening and closing the hand repeatedly means mocking someone’s fearful or nervous behavior; closing the hand and raising it upwards is usually vulgar and means sex; and many others!)

Seeing a gesture from another culture and thinking it is funny is no crime. Sometimes even I do that. I just care to hide my amusement and kindly ask (or look for) its meaning, and never outright laugh in someone’s face. That’s simply rude and comes off as mocking one’s whole heritage.

Now, the issue I have with the emoji, is that people just know its existence from a meme. People don’t actually care it has a meaning. They don’t even think it has one, at times. I don’t want to see it ridiculed anymore, especially when it comes to a gesture that literally cannot say anything by being still, like in a photo or a WhatsApp emoji.

I feel really uncomfortable seeing that and knowing it’s on so many people’s screens just to be made fun of. It just feels really humiliating.

Thank you for reading.

you ever learn how to shut up

1:56 PM
#oh my god
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    If I can add something, I'm also pretty tired of people stereotyping our gestures' culture.
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