Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - The Middle Finger

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why the middle finger is secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

The middle finger, known for being rude, famous for being long. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why the middle finger is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone because I'm joined by my co-host, Katie Golden. Katie! Yes. What is your relationship to or opinion of the middle finger? Use it all the time. Man, I'm just constantly offering people the bird. Yeah. I think it's used a lot in road rage, and I don't really get road rage. I sort of get like

road rage. And I don't, I don't really get road rage. I sort of get like road sadness or road on we, I guess, but I have had a, I've had a road rage incident where I guess a guy behind me just didn't like that. I wasn't going like, uh, 20 above the speed limit, even though I was going five above, above the speed limit. And he was wasting a lot of his time sort of getting in the other lane and being like next to me and like flipping me off like repeatedly. And I didn't look at him at all. I could see out of the corner of my eye the peripheral that he was flipping me off. But the thing that was interesting to me was that he was, you know, wasting his time because he was upset that I wasn't acknowledging the middle finger of

communication. It's like, well, if you're in a hurry, why is this important? I personally don't really use it when I'm angry. I use it as for a fun goof, a little goof them up sometimes, like as a joke. Especially, especially where it's like, hey, what's this in my pocket? And pull out, look at what it is. It's a middle finger. Like, what's this? What's this behind your ear? Is this a corner? No, it's my middle finger. It's a saucy, saucy little joke. What about you, Alex? I know you're constantly raging. My God, you have an anger problem for real. Constantly raging. My God, you have an anger problem for real.

Yeah, I've mainly done the middle finger as a gag and not even that often. It's not a go-to gag for me, but I do feel like there was probably an era when it was extraordinarily offensive and now it's kind of gone around the bend of being a little silly, you know? It's a little silly. Yeah. of being a little silly, you know? It's a little silly. Yeah. Was the middle finger sort of a thing, you know, the expression of discontent when you were growing up or was it something else?

Yeah, pretty much that. I've always known and heard of it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. When I first learned what curses are, it was a set of words on the middle finger. Right. Like that was very clearly known. In Southern California, It's like dude

Or F you dude And middle finger sometimes Right Or raised hands Like what are you doing The two hands up I think that's my go-to When I'm frustrated

Yeah Down the road Yeah Yeah Yeah Because I feel like I'm more correct Like it's less of an insult

And it's more of a Will the world behold This injustice You know I do the like Holding two invisible trays of what the heck uh is my thing like what the heck here's two trays heaping with what the heck and it's for your table pal is what you say yeah did you order did you order the what the heck platter? Because I've got it. Yes. So that sums it up.

Yeah. And I've never really thought about it. It's such a joy. Thank you to Tongue Surgery on the Discord. Their name is Tongue Surgery. That's a great name. It's so good. And we'll talk about the body part a bit and then the gesture a lot is the structure. Great. Our first set of fascinating things about the topic is a set of fascinating numbers and statistics this week. That's in a segment called That's from the statistics zone. Numbers coming all from the statistics zone. Statistics on.

That was submitted by Roro on the Discord. Thank you, Roro. We have a new name for this every week. Please make it as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit through Discord or to Sipod at gmail.com. Fantastic. And our first number is not gesture stuff. It is the number six because that is how many fingers there are on each hand of the aye-aye animal species, which is a kind of lemur found in Madagascar, the aye-aye. Oh, I love these guys. I love these guys. I love these guys. I say aye-aye to the aye-aye. They are such horrible looking little gremlins, but in kind of a cute way,

I find them cute. I've seen them at Duke University, which has an entire lemur center on its grounds. What? In person? It's the biggest collection of lemurs outside of Madagascar. It's amazing. That's incredible. Yeah, everyone should go in North Carolina. Jealous. And it's a mostly nocturnal species of lemur. Yes. And its third finger might be the most amazing middle finger of any Earth species. Its hands do look like demon hands, sort of Boshian horror hands. And yeah, that middle finger, wow, it is long. Yeah, yeah, a Boshian, like a Boshian lemur. I think people know like a ring-tailed lemur. This is a nocturnal spooky lemur in a

great way. The middle finger of the aye-aye is about eight centimeters long, which is over three inches. That's longer than the rest of the hand. Yeah. It's giant compared to the small body of this animal and bigger than the rest of the fingers on the hand. And that special middle finger is also on a ball and socket joint. So it swivels. Yeah. It doesn't just kind of curl like the rest of their fingers or our fingers. It's got a lot of rotation and it's skinnier than the rest of the

fingers too. It's like a really long bony finger. Their hands are already kind of bony and creepy and clawy, but this one is just, it looks like a wacky wiggly skeleton finger. It's so good. And yeah, they use it for everything. And in particular, they can tap that middle finger on trees to listen for wood boring insect larvae. And they can tap it eight times within a second. It's super fast. Then they use that finger to fish the larvae out of the wood. They can also use the finger to scoop the flesh out of coconuts and other fruits. And so it's a perfect eating tool for exploring the forest. So when they're tapping on the tree, they're listening for like the hollow of the wood or are they listening for sort of a response from the larva? I believe the hollow because something's boring through and then those insects are laying

the larvae and what they bored. Imagine sitting there, you're a little larva and you're inside the tree and you're all safe and cozy. And then you hear like a little tapping and then suddenly these like horrible yellow teeth chewing through your wall. And then a giant bony hell finger coming in and scooping you out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even in that face. The other animal comparison I'm thinking of is the flying lemurs from Avatar the Last Airbender.

Like if that was super Blackford and spooky. Yes. It's sort of like that face, like the big eyes, you know, but then this finger coming at you. Big eye eyes. Ay caramba. Yes. And they have these little buck teeth that they're actually,

it's interesting because their teeth are similar to beavers. Their teeth are, and other rodents, but these are not rodents. These are lemurs. They are constantly growing because they use them to chew into wood so much, like they need the constant growth. Otherwise they wear them down and they can't chew out maggots anymore. Wow. That's really interesting. Yeah. And also here's one other thing they use their middle finger for. This was first observed by human scientists in 2022, because it's relatively difficult to observe aye-ayes. Scientists observed an aye-aye using its middle finger to pick its nose. Yeah. And to then eat the mucus that it pulled out.

We'll link the Natural History Museum in London for an incredible diagram of how deep into their head they pick their nose with this gigantic spindly finger. Look at this horrible little gremlin. My God. It's the best. Look at this horrible little gremlin. My God. It's like this photo. It is a nighttime photo.

So its eyes are like shining that creepy night photography luminescence. And so it's a very scrungly looking animal. Like it's got sort of a sunken face and its hair looks like it has never showered, which it actually has never showered. like it has never showered, which it actually has never showered. And then it's got this weird little bony claw hand, and then its finger appears to go basically through its entire skull, through the nasal cavity. Why, Alex? For God's sakes, why? Apparently, mucus eating in primates is relatively understudied. Oh. But according to the Natural History Museum in London, the other number here is 12. IIs are the 12th species, including humans, that we've observed doing it.

Okay. Well, funding. They're just doing it. Why? I guess a bunch of primates do it, including us. Funding for nose-picking primates, please. We need to understand. We need to know this. I mean, that's interesting, right? Because that sounds super gross, right? But mucus does

have a bit of nutritional value. I'm not telling you all to pick and eat your boogers. Please don't. But mucus in nature is eaten. Like say the slime coat on a fish can be eaten. Maybe they're just looking for a little bit of – they're recycling a little extra nutrition there. Yeah. But, yes, it seems like we need more research on primate mucus and its culinary properties. Wow, you sound so excited about that project. I actually am. You sound very committed.

It is cool, yeah. The next number here is 2012, because 2012 is when a scientist and a doctor at the University of Utah collaborated to publish a controversial theory about the origin of human hand shapes and sizes. This has been pushed back on a lot, but it was a new guess about why our fingers are the different lengths they are. Is it for nose picking?

No, although I guess somebody could guess that. But this was covered by science writer Ed Yong at the time, writing for National Geographic. Biologist David Carrier and emergency room physician Michael Morgan theorized that human hands evolved so the fingers can cushion each other for punching. In which case the middle finger would be kind of the central pillar of a hand shaped for punching. of a hand shaped for punching. Hey, you know, you can't hug with nuclear arms, but you can punch with our hands because they were made for punching, right? And that's just what they'll do, do, do, do, do.

One of these days, these hands are gonna punch a fellow primate in the woods. There's a lot of pushback on this. Mainly anatomists and biologists pointed to the lack of punching behavior in our closest relatives, such as chimpanzees. They also pointed out that when humans throw punches with their hands, they really easily fracture and injure their hands. They don't seem that optimal for punching. Yeah. I mean, couldn't it all be grasping comfortably things? Could it not be for punching, but for tool use, like grabbing a rock or grabbing a stick so that the fingers are... Because that's something that our primate cousins do do.

That's exactly the main and probably more accurate counter theory. Because we don't know for sure. But we think that the probable real reason human fingers are the lengths they are is grasping. Partly for grasping tools and also for hanging. Like hanging from branches. Hanging from various stuff. And just hanging out. According to anatomist Randall Sussman of the med school at SUNY Stony Brook, the hands

muscles are arranged in an axis coming together at the middle finger in order to strengthen that for grasping and hanging. Like it makes sense in us and other primates that have some kind of origin from trees. Yeah. So that's probably why our middle finger is the longest and relatively strong. Also for babies hanging on to their mothers, like that's a big thing for primates. And so babies, human babies actually have this reflex where they can grab onto things and they have surprising grip strength from being born, which is theorized to be sort of left over from the baby has to come out and be able to grab onto its mother.

That makes total sense. And it makes more sense than punchability. The baby comes out ready to punch. Yeah. Yeah. And the main difference between human and other ape hands is that humans have a relatively long thumb. So our other fingers are still relatively primate-like compared to the thumb. And so that also fits this idea that we basically have a big middle finger for grasping.

Okay. Hey, you know what? I think people grasp the concept when I give them the middle finger. So how about that? I think people grasp the concept when I give them the middle finger. So how about that? Yeah, if you say grasp this, people will be like, I would be offended, but you're teaching me about primates. And the next number here brings us into the gesture. The number, 423 BC, that's the premiere date in Athens, Greece, of a play called The Clouds by the playwright and comedy writer Aristophanes. Hmm. And he wrote in a middle finger bit.

Where someone says, Prithee, I am walking here. I don't think they said Prithee. Hail, but I aggress here. I don't know how they wouldithee. Hail, but I aggress here. I don't know how they would talk in these times, but you know. Yeah, this exchange, they didn't really use the middle finger for anger. They used it as part of a broader penis joke. They love dongs at this time. Okay, Pompeii was a bit earlier than this, I think, but like, man, they sure love dongs. And Greece and its influence on Rome. Yeah, there's a real through line here we'll get into. Yeah. Yeah. Because the exchange in the clouds, here's the dialogue

exchange. It starts with the character of Socrates. They wrote Socrates into the play. Socrates says, polite society will accept you if you can discriminate, say, between the martial anapest and common dactylic, sometimes vulgarly called finger rhythm. I don't understand anything you just said. Is this a sex joke? Bigot there, yeah. Because there's another character named Strepsiades, and Strepsiades says, finger rhythm? I know that. Socrates says, define it then. And now Strepsiades does penis stuff. He extends his middle finger in an obscene gesture and says, why it's tapping time with this finger. Of course, when I was a boy, and then the stage direction here is raising his phallus to the ready.

And then he says, I used to make rhythm with this one. Ah, I see. We're talking about like angry American on the street giving the finger. I think he does the like grabbing your pants crotch, basically. We still do it, you know? And he does a joke at least about penises, maybe about manual stimulation too, and involving a middle finger gesture. In 423 BC, in public, like in front of an audience. We think we're so different from these ancient peoples, but we're all the same. We got the same brain.

Yeah. And that speaks to this gesture because takeaway number one, since the time of ancient Greece, the middle finger gesture has kind of represented male genitals. Okay. It's also moved beyond that, and there's a scientific study of modern Americans suggesting that it now has its own meaning separate from that. But the Greeks and the Romans in particular used it to offensively represents a penis and balls. Well, OK, I can see the wiener aspect, the phallus, but I don't the scrotal, the scrotal sort of thing. Why is that the rest of your hand? Like, what's going on with that? The rest of your hand below it, which is proportionally a little funny, but it's what people are going with.

A little funny. A little funny, you know. Hmm. Well, it's, you know, since high school students, if you are listening to this and you wrote a wiener on your notes and your teacher got mad at you, just say, I am practicing an ancient tradition from antiquity, from Grecian antiquity. Yeah. Tell them Katie Golden visited Pompeii and saw it graffitied, graffitoed. Exactly. Name drop me.

Tell your teacher to take it up with me. But if they look really mad, say I did it, then they'll blame me instead. Katie's in the clear, you know? Right. Yeah. I'm in the clear. I'm on a different continent, so what can they do to me? Yeah. And Terran does an extradite, I'm going to claim. I don't know. That's probably not true. Let's not test that. No, that's probably not true. Let's not test that. And this takeaway, the key sources are a law review article by American University law professor Ira P. Robbins, a piece for BBC News Magazine by Daniel Naysaw, and a 2019 study published in PLOS One by Benjamin K. Bergen of UC San Diego. And they're all looking at the

ancient history, truly, of the middle finger gesture. According to anthropologist Desmond Morris, quote, it's one of the most ancient insult gestures known. The middle finger is the penis, and the curled fingers on either side are the testicles, end quote. fingers on either side are the testicles, end quote. Okay. But I thought that so the penis and testicles, it's interesting because a lot of times in antiquity, it was used as sort of a symbol of fertility, fecundity. It was a good luck charm. So it wasn't always meant to be an offensive symbol. So was it like, did it have sort of different meanings at the same time or did the meaning shift? Different meanings at the same time.

Yeah, it was very context dependent. And because, yeah, you're absolutely right. We can link about a especially Roman figurine of a winged penis whose Latin name was a fascinum. So that's where the word fascinating comes from. Fun for this show. That should be our new logo. What the heck? If only we could get that past the Apple and Spotify

censors. Cowards. I hope New York State doesn't extradite. Oh boy, let's see. Yeah, because there's that and either the vulgarity or in some cases we'll talk about gestures where there's basically a threat to do a penis to the other person. It's a very flexible symbol in its connotation. Right. And yeah, people came up with a gesture that was recognized to be negative. We're such a funny species because, you know, there's just so much like we come up with literature, we come up with art, and we're still like, my genitals, look at my genitals. Here's a symbol of my genitals.

Yeah. And then put it in Greek drama, although Aristophanes was probably on the comedy end. People were probably like, I'm not seeing a good play. I'm seeing Aristophanes. It's going to be, you know. Wow. Ancient burn. Not seeing one of those Oscar plays.

I'm seeing Aristophanes. Tony, I guess. You get it. Do we have some kind of tincture for that ancient burn? And this was very clear to ancient Greeks. Aristophanes may or may not have coined it, but it was out there as early as the 400s BC. In 330 BC, somebody published a book about eminent Greek philosophers where they describe an exchange where the orator Demosthenes is walking away from the cynic philosopher Diogenes, and Diogenes gives him the middle finger and says, there goes the demagogue of Athens. Wow. And the ancient Romans just took this on along with a lot of other Greek culture,

and they called the middle finger the digitus impudicus, which literally means impudent finger, means shameless or indecent. The digitus impudicus. Oh, yeah. Tell your teacher that's what you're waving around, you know? Right. It's just the digitus impudicus.

This was very well known to be rude. There's a possibly fake account of the Roman Emperor Caligula, instead of offering his ring for subjects to kiss, offering his middle finger. That does feel made up. Which was understood to be like, kiss me on the penis. But there was a lot of defamatory stuff about those emperors by their enemies. I'm sure he wasn't a nice guy, but I think he may have been an a-hole, but I don't know if he was the a-hole of the magnitude that was written about him. They really overplayed their propaganda with him. Yeah. They could

have just said he did a bad job, I think. Yeah. And the other wild story is the Roman historian Tacitus. He describes a battle between a Roman legion and German warriors. And he describes the German warriors giving the middle finger to the Roman soldiers as they advanced on each other. So either that's real and the culture spread to Germany or it's made up but speaking to this Roman belief that the gesture is truly rude. Yeah, kind of like the Germans are really sort of savages in their leopard skin lederhosen. Oh, if only. Wow. Roll into Munich with that? Oh, baby. Yeah. Free beer for you.

I don't think there's leopards in Germany. No, not anymore. They turned them into too many lederhosen. It's too bad. Not all cultures feature this gesture this way, and there's debate about it possibly kind of fading in the post-Roman period and before coming back and how that would have happened. the post-Roman period and before coming back and how that would have happened. Between then and now, the gestures become pretty separate from a penis in most people's minds. Like this takeaway is surprising to a lot of people, right?

Like we don't necessarily think of that. Yeah. And in a 2019 study at UC San Diego, Benjamin K. Bergen ran psychological studies where they primed people with thoughts about penises or about the word penis. But, quote, the results showed that the middle finger induced no priming of penis compared with control, unlike another obscene penis representing gesture, finger bang, which did. Can you run that one back for me, Alex? I want you to repeat that. Yeah. The middle finger induced no priming of penis compared with the control, unlike another obscene penis representing gesture, parenthetical finger bang, which did. Just a diagram of the finger bang of the initial positions of the finger. You extend the finger, the index finger on one hand, and you have the thumb and middle finger on the finger. You extend the finger, the index finger on one hand,

and you have the thumb and middle finger on the other. And you insert the index finger into the cone formed by your thumb and middle finger repeatedly. Yeah, I bought a copy of this study and they put it in a brown bag before I left 7-Eleven. They were like, okay, here you go. Yeah. Bergen says this suggests the middle finger's meaning has shifted over time. And in technical language, it began as an iconic gesture. Like it was an icon of a penis. Like visually an icon.

Right. And it's gone from being technical word iconic to technical word emblematic. Like it's now just an emblem of rudeness that's not necessarily depicting a part of the body. It's sort of like with letters, right? Letters used to kind of be iconic. They used to be direct representative of an object to kind of give you a sense of the syllable that you're saying. And then they became just abstract emblems for a concept of a sound. Exactly. And so this gesture is rude on its own and it's the shape it is because people, probably guys, decided it kind of looks like a penis and balls 2,000 years ago.

Ancient ladies could be, you know, crude as well, I'm sure. It's more fun if they picked it, I guess. So either way. Yeah. It is interesting to me how we don't really, like, I mean, the finger banging symbol does, I guess, technically have sort of a vulva, a crude depiction of a vulva. But it's not like we're not going around doing an O shape at people like, A, for some reason, the female genitalia do not seem as vulgar or not used as much in sort of a vulgar context on one hand. But on the other hand, like there's a lot more modesty enforced on women, especially earlier on, like where it's like a naked woman is seen as more potentially vulgar than a naked man because with the phallus,

it's like, well, this is funny and crude, but also not as taboo, say, as the female parts. That's right. And it ties straight into our next takeaway, too, because takeaway number two. There's a slew of international variations on the middle finger gesture, and that difference helped US POWs defeat North Korean propaganda. That difference helped US POWs defeat North Korean propaganda. What? Yeah. US POWs defeated their North Korean captors that way because it was not such a known gesture in East Asia in the 1960s.

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. But this is a very familiar gesture in the US and Canada. And they've kind of globalized it, especially in the last few decades. Most of the world knows the middle finger now, but until a few decades ago, it was not such a thing. And there's other gestures in other countries that we'll talk about. So were these POWs just giving the middle finger to their captors as a way to show that they are not being treated well, like in published photos? Yes. Yeah. Wow.

In 1968, there was a U.S. Navy spy ship called the USS Pueblo. And this is after the active Korean War, but still in the Cold War, still in a state of combat. Plus, the U.S. is fighting a Vietnam War. So the North Koreans claim the Pueblo went into their waters and captured it. 83 crew members are North Korean prisoners. And the North Koreans tried to turn that into a propaganda weapon. They forced the sailors to be in press photos and footage and write a bunch of false confessions of crimes and profess allegiance to this much better North Korean society that they were thrilled to be in. Then one day, a Pueblo crew member tried giving the middle finger

to a camera crew. It just is a small act of rebellion. And to their surprise, they produced a newsreel with the middle finger in it. The North Koreans just made that and broadcast it, and the guys saw it, and they were like, hey, you just gave the finger in the newsreel. That's okay. And another guy tried it with another camera crew and they realized this was not a common gesture in North Korea in the

1960s. Right. I know that being a prisoner of war is not funny, but hey, you got to find a little bit of gallows humor there. That's pretty incredible. And also like effective, right? Because you're sort of showing that you're not really giving a true confession here or you're sort of, do not hold your captors in high regard. Precisely. So then what happens from there is the crew said that they just flashed the middle finger Anytime they saw a photo camera or video camera at all Just all of them started doing it all the time They also came up with a cover story

They told the North Koreans it was a Hawaiian good luck gesture Like sort of a variance of hang loose That the North Koreans had in mind We're certainly hanging loose here Like sort of a variance of hang loose that the North Koreans had in mind. Right. You know? We're certainly hanging loose here on a POW ship, yes. So that like North Korean state media puts out these things where there's a bunch of text about the Americans are all loving our imprisonment. And then an entire group of Americans is all giving the middle finger to the camera.

Unfortunately for the crew, an issue of Time Magazine printed that and described the scam. No, don't. And so the crew was tragically tortured a bunch as punishment. But at the same time, the North Koreans realized the game's up. we can't use these guys for propaganda anymore. Anything else we make with them will just be side by side with the past middle finger photos. So later that year, they got released from custody and returned to the U.S. Okay.

Well, good. I personally, this is a hot take, but I don't like torture. I think it's bad. There's a lot of darkness in the story because it's just awful being imprisoned by the North Koreans. And also, they busted themselves out essentially with the middle finger. They broke the scam that the North Koreans were trying to run by scamming them back with the middle finger.

Much like the aye-aye busts into the trees to get the grubs with its middle finger, they busted out of prison with their middle fingers. Wow. It's poetic, I guess, right? Now I'm thinking about aye-ayes again. It feels great. Oh, they're so cool. Yeah. They are cool.

I feel like if you had an aye-aye with you in a war, the war would just be over because they're so haunted. They're too spooky. Yeah. The other side would surrender. You have a haunted monkey. I can't fight you. They're lemurs, not monkeys. I'm sorry.

Our pro-Symbian listeners were like, hey. Hey. Hey. And yeah, the other reason the Pueblo crew could do this trick is that, again, until very recently, there was a lot of variation in terms of a rude gesture and the middle finger gesture style across the world. And maybe the best known alternative is the British V sign. Despite the U.S. and Canada's close relationship to Britain, they really had a very different version, which is you extend the middle finger and pointer finger with the palm facing inward. And usually kind of an upward motion. The meaning is up yours.

And that was, was that meant to be sort of female parts? It is the meaning of your finger up someone's butt. Oh, well, hey, you know what? We all have different tastes, different strokes for different folks. I'm not here to judge. And that gesture was especially popular until World War II, because then first Belgian leaders on the Allied side, and then later other Allied leaders, especially Winston Churchill, popularized V for victory. And then in the 1960s, people got a peace sign going. And so you just flip your palm around basically for the difference, but people wanted to avoid the confusion.

And so they've drifted more toward the middle finger. Yeah. In Italy, there's a sign sort of on the other side of the conflict. There's a sign that's like, it's like devil horns in the US for like if you're doing a metal show, like, yeah, devil horns. But in Italy, it's actually sort of a rude gesture and a homophobic gesture to sort of imply that the other person has a different sexual orientation. Yeah. But then there's another, that same sort of like, that same kind of gesture, if you like turn it like upside down,

I think it becomes like a sort of anti-evil eye kind of thing where it's like the evil eye is this concept that someone can sort of curse you with a evil eye, but then these hands in the shape of sort of a horn, but like facing down is like a protection against the evil eye. So sort of a similar kind of like, it's not really involving the middle finger, I guess, except that the middle finger is down, actually. So, yeah.

That's one of the big examples. Yeah, there are key gestures doing that same, I'm pointing a fence at you, that are very different hand shapes and not necessarily phallic. Yeah, there's that Italian one. There's also one that's popular in Greece, Turkey, and parts of Central Europe called the fig. And the fig is where you clench your fist, but you put your thumb between the index finger and middle finger. Sort of like a, like a, I got your nose kind of thing. Yes. And it is the same hand motion as an American joke of I got your nose, but don't do it on the street in Greece or Turkey because it's an extremely offensive gesture.

That was why everyone was mad at me because I kept getting their noses. Yeah, you shouldn't take so many noses in the Bosphorus, I guess. Yeah. And that gesture possibly has its visual origin in resembling a vulva, actually. That might be more of a vaginal look. Okay. Is the thumb supposed to be the clitoris? Yeah, kind of. Okay. There you go. Ladies, equality. We've done it. Some other rude gestures, one that's pretty well known in America is,

some people call it the forearm jerk. In France, where it's popular, it's called the bras d'honneur. But it's where you bend your elbow at a 90-degree angle and then slap your forearm upward over your other forearm. Bras d'honneur means like arm of honor, right? Yeah, so it's kind of an ironic name. I see. Ah, the French in there, irony. Yeah.

And then maybe the most surprising and risky one for Americans I see a lot of French in there. Irony. in various communities, and probably less and less, again, because of American globalization. But it has meant up yours in many countries, even though it's the most chill way of doing a positive gesture in the United States. Has this ever started a war? No, not that I know of. So we got away with it, folks. Worked out. And that's a ton of numbers and two big takeaways. When we return, we'll explore lots more wild incidences of the middle finger. And I'm going to try to do all the rude gestures during the break. Practicing. Folks, this is a heads up.

There's a new SIF bonus show every week. I don't know if everybody knows that. Maybe they missed the outro or something. There's a new SIF bonus where me and Katie do a new amazing additional story every week. These past few weeks, we've explored every U.S. president who's ever tried to win a non-consecutive next term, video games made in Microsoft Excel, fine art made in Microsoft Excel, the amazing way grizzly bears use insulin, which you'd never think about, and clouds on other planets. Every Maximum Fun member gets that new bonus show every week and gets the whole library of our bonus shows anytime. So please visit MaximumFun.org slash join and then join that weekly bonus party. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks

to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney,

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You've achieved your goal. I got fingy cramps from all the rudeness I've been doing. And this middle finger gesture we mentioned, it's very big in Canada in addition to the U.S. The next number here is 1982. The year that Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Stupid rhyme. It works. 1982 is when Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau sparked national protests by giving three protesters the middle finger in Western Canada.

Wow. Hey, now. Come on. That's not very prime ministerly. The prime minister. What were the protesters protesting? Yeah, they were protesting a call by Pierre Trudeau to not give government workers raises and to keep expenses down for public workers. And so when he was visiting salmon-armed British Columbia, three protesters demonstrated against him. He gave them the finger from his train car and they responded by throwing vegetables at it.

I love you, Canada. You know, I mean, you've got your problem. You've got your problems. You've got your nasty secrets, but throwing vegetables at the train that're prime minister in is so good. What kinds of vegetables are we talking about? We don't know, but there's a fun progression where Trudeau was on a vacation train trip. He had gone all the way west on a train in Canada. And he also went with his three sons, one of whom is future Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Okay, yes. Because I was thinking, wow, what a coincidence that there's a Trudeau. But it's nepotism. Yeah, it's some Bush or Adams stuff, yeah. It's some Bush hijinks. I guess we ran out of charismatic Bushes, didn't we? Feels like you're underappreciating Jeb. Jeb!

Acclamation point. Jeb! Please clap. Poor old Jeb. So what happens is Pierre gives them the finger, they throw vegetables at him, and then a trend starts where Trudeau's train is slowly returning east, and more and more protesters throw more and more vegetables at the train. Oh, man, that's yeah. I mean, you know, I am sad about the waste

of folate from those vegetables, but still get them with the vegetables. So cute. By the end, the press nicknamed his train the Caesar Salad Special. Yeah. Because it was so heaped with produce. That's about as spicy as Canadians will get. Calling your train the Caesar Salad Express. That's peak rudeness. It's really good, yeah.

And it eventually got dangerous. Apparently in Sudbury, Ontario. So most of the way back to Ottawa. But in Sudbury, Ontario, 500 protesters threw vegetables and rocks and broke several train windows. Well, now. So that's spicy. Now, hang on, guys. You got your, I feel like you should stick with the vegetable theme, right?

Because you don't want to hurt the train. The train's an innocent in this situation. And the train car is now in a museum because it was so famous for its attack. Do people still throw vegetables at it? I guess I would if I visited the museum. I would see if they let me huck a little cabbage at it for the fun. Just a little baby carrot. A baby carrot.

Oh, yeah. Just doink. It won't do any harm. Yeah. Just doink. And then apparently to this day, some Canadians will call the middle finger gesture the Trudeau salute. But this mainly comes up in politics because this story became a symbol of national politicians and Eastern politicians not respecting Western Canada. There can be tension between Eastern and Western Canada over various issues.

And Western politicians will bring up policies they feel are rude as another Trudeau salute from out East. And then his son, Justin Trudeau, is just tied to this by association, partly because he was on the car. He was there. And when he was campaigning to be prime minister in 2013, Justin Trudeau visited Kelowna, British Columbia. He said that he learned from his father that, quote, one should always wave with all five fingers. Yeah. In reference to this well-known scandal. Yeah.

In reference to this well-known scandal. Have you heard the conspiracy theory that Justin Trudeau's father is not Pierre Trudeau, but instead Fidel Castro? It rules. It's so fake. Yeah. I'm not really someone who gets into conspiracy theories, but I like this one. I like it. Yeah, yeah.

I just like that. Like, look at these faces, right? They're both handsome young men. Look at that. Right. Two people can't have dark hair without being related. No. It's fake and it's great.

I mean, you know, come on. Like, look, if you want me, if I could pick a conspiracy theory that could be correct, I'm going to pick that one over the moon landing being faked. Or maybe he was conceived on the moon by Fidel Castro. We've never seen Justin Trudeau and the moon in the same picture. Prove me wrong is what I – show me proof I'm wrong. We'll also link your really great recent Somewhere News episode that you wrote about conspiracy theories. It's so good. I don't know what you're talking about.

Everything's true in that episode. Oh, I see. I see. You didn't write it. Ooh. Warren Bow wrote it. He's real. Yeah.

Yeah. We're getting into some deep lore that the average listener is not going to know what we're talking about. Something known to everyone. Next number, the fall of 2004. Fall of 2004. Fall of 2004 is when video surfaced of U.S. President George W. Bush as Texas governor giving the middle finger to his advisor. Hey, you know what? Now you're talking, right? You're not is fall of 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection as president. And then his opponents say, ah, we've found a clip that will destroy him. Texas governor, but like joking around with his advisor, Karen Hughes. And he says, quote, she's still telling me what to do, and then gives her a playful middle finger. And then somebody off camera says, hey, is this camera running? And Bush jokes that he was simply doing a one-fingered

victory salute. And so the clip like goes around the relatively new internet and his opponents are like, oh, we've caught him being rude and terrible. Basically, nobody cared. And if anything, people found it a sign of his sense of humor and he won reelection. It was fine. That's such a miscalculation in terms of like what people are, what people's sensibilities are. I think that this keeps happening, right? Where someone does not super offensive or mean, but I mean something that's kind of rude or not proper. And it's always like, ooh, people are going to really be upset that X candidate used the wrong salad fork. And it's like, no.

Right. We're all like, I don't know the salad forks. And people who bring that up are jerks. Yeah, right. Yeah. I eat salad with my fingers. It's so different from Trudeau. Like, it was a non-issue joking with your friends.

Like, the one good George W. Bush thing is that he seemed to be a fun hang. Right. And this clip was him being a fun hang. And it just worked for him. A man I could have some kind of alcoholic beverage with. Maybe a Sauvignon Blanc with. Yeah, there we go. And everybody's like, boo, wine stinks. And then votes for Bush some more somehow, a third term. It's called Freedom Juice now. Some more somehow.

A third term. It's called Freedom Juice now. And yeah, and another number here is about the oldness of the middle finger gesture in the United States. The number is 1886. 1886 is the year when baseball player Charles Radbourne snuck a middle finger into a team photo. Fun. And it is potentially the oldest media capture of a middle finger gesture in American history. Was he doing it sly, like having it on his leg or something, where it's like, my hand is resting on my leg and there's my middle finger?

Or was he just full on flipping the bird? Interestingly, we have an example of him doing each thing. Ooh, mixing it up. And it also apparently got around because Charles Radbourne, nicknamed Old Hoss, he was a future Baseball Hall of Famer and an excellent pitcher. And in 1886, the Boston Bean Eaters baseball team. This is so long ago, that was a team name. Come on, guys.

Come on. Bean Eaters? Yeah, baseball's a great sport. Man, we're just such an incredible, forceful team. What would inspire confidence in our fans? Yeah, eating beans. And then Boston's like, oh, no, no, we found a more intimidating name, Red Sox. Now they're scared.

Yeah, we were. Gosh, what is intimidating when we wear little cute little sockies on our little feetsies? Now we found a really intimidating mascot, a tiny leprechaun for our basketball team. Now people are scared of Boston, right? Right? We're really good at this. But so 1886, opening day for the Boston Bean Eaters, the whole team is gathered and Radborn did a full hand up,

not sneaky middle finger, but in a big group photo. Okay. And then this got published, publicized. And there might be older pictures of a middle finger, but this was the first one that got shown to a large group of Americans. I see. The first one to corrupt our youth. I'm corrupting the youth. Simple as the next year, 1887, Radbourne poses for a baseball card. And in this time, most baseball cards were published by tobacco companies. So this was a tobacco company promotional baseball card.

And Radbourne put both hands on his hips and did the middle finger with one hand. And so that was also distributed widely. Nobody caught it before production. I love that. Yeah. So that's how far back the middle finger gesture goes in America at a minimum. And so that's part of why it's kind of swung around to being playful. Like once an obscenity is old enough, we all kind of just get used to it, I think. And then we don't sweat it so much. Yeah. Just like how we all lift our phalluses up next to our middle finger because it's such an old gesture that now it's no longer a big deal.

That's right. The Greeks taught us. The Greeks did teach us. And our last takeaway of the main show is takeaway number three. The middle finger is an interesting constitutional law case study. Now, I have nothing but respect for the boys in blue. Is there a way to get that across sarcastically? Like through like, how do I do how? Okay. I have nothing but respect for the boys in blue. There we go.

But, you know, I think that we do have a right to flip them off. I'm not saying I do. I'm so polite. Yeah. But, you know, it seems like we should have the right to do that without being arrested. Yeah. And essentially, if you have time and money and the main example of this is the story of a white man, you can give up the middle finger to police and the law will protect you in most cases. That's the thing, though.

The law may eventually protect you, but in the meantime. You have to work the system first. Yeah. Which may include physical violence, especially if you are, what's the word I'm looking for? Not privileged. I don't know that I would suggest it given that it's not like being legally and Yeah. Yeah. And we'll talk about a couple other countries here too, but the main one is the U.S. Lots of countries have a general principle of free expression. And under U.S. law, in many cases, the middle finger has been determined to be speech and has been determined to be something protected by the First Amendment. That's why whenever people are like, speech, speech, speech at a wedding or something, I just give everyone the middle finger and I'm like, enough said. or something, I just give everyone the middle finger and I'm like, enough said.

Right. We already told you what to tell your teacher. Now, valedictorians, listen up. Yeah. When you're giving a speech at graduation. I like that we're cultivating this image of me where I am just a real rascal. A real rule, a real rule bender. We were both so polite in high school, right? Yeah, I was a weenie.

I was such a weenie. Yeah, me too. But now I'm like, avatar the rule bender. I feel like that gives away what a weenie I am for making that joke. So, you know. Yeah, and so one source here is, again, American University law professor Ira Robbins. He says, in various cases, the middle finger gesture has been found to be expressing anger, rage, frustration, disdain, protest, defiance, comfort, or even excitement. There's various situations where it's been defined as a way of speaking that with your hands. It's almost the logic of how. I love flipping my parents off on Christmas morning. I'm just so excited.

It's like a woohoo, like the rock fingers or something. It can be that. And because it's a complex way of speaking, you're pretty much allowed to do it. I mentioned a white man being an example. Back in 2016, the podcast Criminal by Phoebe Judge, they interviewed an Oregon resident who gives the middle finger to every police officer he sees. Oh, you know. It's just what he does going around. And in one instance, the police proceeded to chase him down and write him tickets

for a broken taillight and a darkened license plate. But then he, through time and money and obstreperousness, sued and won a legal settlement of $4,000. And the police department told the interviewer that it just cost less to do that than to argue the case. Right. But it was considered an illegal search and tickets to chase him down for a middle finger. Like they couldn't proceed to notice issues with his car based on a middle finger. He's allowed to say that to a cop. That makes sense, right? Like if you were not going to give a ticket until you were offended by someone, then yeah, that's then it's just retribution.

Yeah. And so if you will survive that encounter and if you have money and time. Which is questionable. OK. Right. Another similar example, Ira Robbins says there was a Texas resident named Robert Lee Coggin. In 2003, he gave the middle finger to another driver, was convicted of disorderly conduct and fined $250. And he successfully challenged that on free speech grounds after spending $15,000 in legal fees. Like just to make a point, he said First Amendment. And he was right.

It's how it works. Yeah. Like just to make a point, he said First Amendment and he was right. It's how it works. Yeah. I mean, you know, like you don't got you don't got to like it, but you do got to constitutionally protect it. Yeah. And and there's like a few ways we do restrict speech based on the Constitution. The middle finger is generally considered not a violation of obscene speech rules that would limit speech. The main exception is if your middle finger incites violence. That's where you can be restricted in your use of it.

Yeah. In what context would that incite violence, though? Because it can't, it's not fighting words, right, where you give someone the middle finger and they punch you and thus it's inciting violence, because that would be like, you know, fighting words. It's not really that. So it'd have to be you give the middle finger to a mob who go and do violence in the name of your middle finger. But how would that ever happen? name of your middle finger. But how would that ever happen? You're hitting on the right thing. It can be fighting words if it's accompanying other things you're doing. Yeah. I see. They would need to successfully argue that you did a middle finger along with facial expressions or verbal words that are directly inciting violence. So if I give you the middle finger, I'm like, you don't even look like a clam. Why are you called the clam to you, Alex? Oh, no, I punched my monitor. Oh, no. Oh, no. Then he's Alex Schmidty, the steamed clams.

Going to go design my superhero costume later. Anyway, anyway, back on topic. Like in that Texas case of Robert Lee Coggin, when the court found him not guilty, they specifically said motorists can be prosecuted for a middle finger accompanying road rage or reckless driving. I mean, at that point, it's not really does the middle finger even play a role? Because if you're doing reckless driving and road rage, that seems like that's already a lot. Like, does the middle finger add anything onto that? Yeah, it probably only adds a little. It becomes a situation where a middle finger is almost like additional evidence. So it's very hard to make it the main evidence. Like simply giving somebody that gesture under U.S. law, it's pretty hard to convict you of anything

once you fight it out in a court. Right. If you have the money, time and you have not been, you know, unalived in a road raid sort of situation because apparently everyone is armed to the teeth in the U.S. Yeah. And in general, don't fight teeth in the U.S. Yeah. And in general, don't fight people in the U.S. Because there is solid Supreme Court precedent that fighting words are not protected by the First Amendment. There's a 1992 decision where they said that fighting words aren't protected because of the, quote, intolerable and socially unnecessary mode of expressing whatever idea the speaker wishes to convey. The argument is whatever you are trying to communicate, you can do it without pushing someone to violently fight you. And that's pretty much true. I guess I should say it's true in a

world where judging is perfect and they don't just slap you with a fake. I just think it's tricky, right? Because at what point is a word's violence? At what point is words equivalent to say violence, right? It would concern me, right, in terms of determining what is fighting words, right? But that's why I'm not a lawyer. Other countries treat this differently, too, which is interesting to me. The two big examples in Ira Robbins' law are- Let me guess, Germany. Is Germany one of them?

Yes, Germany is one of them. I knew it. And his other example is France. Yeah. And his other example is France. Yeah. And he says that after the eras of Nazism and European fascism, countries like Germany and France instituted a lot of specific restrictions on hateful speech and violence inciting speech. There's an entire German law called the law of insult, which criminalizes stuff, including specific insulting gestures. Germany is a really interesting example of both the good intentions and the dangers behind this

concept, right? Because obviously, like quashing Nazism is perhaps the most noble cause you could have. But then I think what one sees in Germany is sometimes protests and speech, especially now, like when it applies to non-Nazi ideologies, right, and other things, can then it's like they can use these laws, right, that were originally meant to keep Nazism at bay for other sort of like policing other speech. Right. So it is making sure those laws then can't be applied to other speech is very important. Exactly. Yeah.

And so it just puts you in more of a gray area because you don't know how the judge will come down or the police officer will react. And France is its own gray area, too, because they have specific legal protections for people's personal honor. They have legal precedent allowing people to fight back if their honor has been affronted. So French. It's called the Zootalore law. And so for those two reasons, the middle finger is relatively restricted in countries like Germany and France. In the U.S., we don't really protect personal honor and we don't have those German-style guardrails against a Nazi past. The very, very last thing there is in Vermont, a man named Ted Pelkey, in 2018, he constructed a 700-pound

giant wooden statue of a middle finger on his property because he was angry with the local town select board for not letting him rezone the land and put his business on it. And after 10 years, he says, of arguing with them, he just gave up and put up a middle finger instead. Fantastic. And it was like easily legally defensible, even though the middle finger was visible from the highway. It qualified as public art in addition to free speech. I love it. And so all sorts of First Amendment protections defended a giant 700-pound wooden middle finger.

I love it. defended a giant 700 pound wooden middle finger. I love it. It's free speech. It's American. And it's about terrible zoning laws. It's fantastic. I'm pro giant middle finger when it comes to extremely restrictive zoning regulations.

And also just like, man, it is, again, proud to be American. Yeah, he apparently you can still see it in Westford, Vermont. In 2019, he told the Vermont Digger blog that he's going to keep it up forever and that it is, quote, awesome. We're doing it, folks. USA. Yes. Hey, folks, that's the main episode for this week. Welcome to the outro with fun features for you, such as help remembering this episode, with a run back through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, since the time of ancient Greece, the middle finger gesture has kind of represented male genitals. Takeaway number two, there's a slew of international variations on the middle finger gesture, and that difference helped US POWs

defeat North Korean propaganda. Takeaway number three, the middle finger is a major constitutional law case study. Plus so many stats and numbers this week about the middle finger in Canadian political scandal, US political non-scandal, the origins of U.S. baseball, and the entire primate world relationship to this digit. Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumFun.org. Members are the reason this podcast exists. So members get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is two astounding middle fingers in modern Northern Italy.

And you can go see both of them. Katie's seen one. Visit SIFPod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of 16 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of MaxFun bonus shows. It's special audio just for members. Thank you to everybody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun things, check out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources this week include a law review article by American University law professor Ira P. Robbins, and tons of digital historical resources from Canada's National Post, Atlas Obscura, Britain's Imperial War Museum, and more. That page also features

resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenape Hokang, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people and the Wappinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skadigok people, and others. Also, Katie taped this in the country of Italy, and I want to acknowledge that in my location, in many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free SIFT Discord, where we're sharing stories and resources about Native people and life. There is a link in this

episode's description to join the Discord. We are also talking about this episode on the Discord, and hey, would you like a tip on another episode? Because each week I'm finding you something randomly incredibly fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator. This week's pick is episode 49. That's about the topic of postal codes, like zip codes and stuff. Fun fact there, every country has an obsolete postal code system, with the specific exception of the Republic of Ireland. So I recommend that episode. I also recommend my co-host Katie Golden's weekly podcast, Creature Feature, about animals and science and more. Our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band.

Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Special thanks to the Beacon Music Factory for taping support. Extracts for special thanks go to our members, and thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating

So how about that? Talk to you then. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.