It’s a slow news day, so let’s make the most of it and have some fun.

Over the past several days, Twitter has been inundated with a peculiar trend involving a hand. This phenomenon started with a Japanese artist known as “dEi” or “デデチ,” who posted an unusual image of a single left hand pinching.

The artist encouraged others to freely use and share the image, invertedly sparking a widespread viral sensation.

The tweet has since amassed over 272 million views and 244,000 likes. Twitter was unprepared for the torrential flood unleashed by dEi.

Japanese netizens quickly jumped on dEi’s image, using it for their own amusement. They combined and modified the pinched hand gesture with various popular characters or simply used it to post funny pictures of their cats for example.

Of course, given the diverse and often contentious groups on Twitter ranging from deranged trans activists and political zealots arguing over the upcoming election to rainbow warriors subverting fictional characters to rally support for Palestine, it’s no surprise that the artists of Twitter have eagerly embraced this peculiar trend.

Many artists incorporated dEi’s image into their own work, resulting in numerous provocative or outright pornographic adaptations. If you know where to look, you’ll find Twitter awash with these creative renditions.

With over 96,000 retweets, dEi’s post is filled with funny and sexual images of the pinched hand gesture in the quote tweets.

Various gentlemen positioned the hand to grasp at various figures, both real and fictional, often targeting boobs, thighs, or stomachs. It’s staggering to see such a simple image blow wildly out of proportion, driven by the sheer number of Japanese artists on Twitter accelerating the trend which has since gone global.

Personalities like Snowflake Lamy, a fifth-generation VTuber from Hololive’s JP group, joined the trend by sharing a picture of her avatar being grasped by the hand in question.

As a self-proclaimed degenerate with a past fondness for Counter-Strike, I found it peculiar to see one of those disgusting gambling websites, Skin Club in particular, joining the trend. With their social media manager replying with an image of the pinched hand caressing a blushing Bayonet Knife.

Since it is freely available, people discovered that the image doesn’t always have to be funny. It can be surprisingly humorous in other contexts and can even create various pictures with ambiguous meanings, though of course it was mainly used to grab tits and ass.

This was highlighted when the official English account of the Azur Lane mobile game posted a dubious image featuring the character Alsace being pinched around the stomach while underwater in a bikini.

My favorite use of the hand image comes from nitarinDX, who cleverly used it to pinch the miniature blob/slug rendition of Hitori Gotoh from the recent anime adaptation sensation “Bocchi the Rock!”

Nitari has a fascination with this adorable depiction of everyone’s favorite introvert, evident in their YouTube account, which is filled with short clips featuring social anxiety in blob form.

It’s truly remarkable to witness such a simple image amass well over 200 million views, undoubtedly propelled by the multitude of artists incorporating it into their own creations. This not only adds to the fun but also serves as self-promotion for the artists.

As Japanese netizens embraced the trend, the hand gesture went global, capturing the attention of westerners and establishments with humorous social media managers and influential figures like prominent VTubers with millions of followers. Essentially, if you have a large enough skin area, you’re free to use this hand image as your own material.