Williams believes that Barack Obama deserves credit for reinventing the fist bump. In 2008, when Obama locked knuckles with Michelle after his nomination, the cable stations erupted, and a Fox newscaster denounced the “terrorist fist jab.” Yet the bump emerged from the brouhaha looking presidential. “Obama’s fist bump caught the attention of the world,” Williams says. “And so, because of that platform, it’s not just people who are watching sports that are seeing it. It’s the leaders.” For the stiffest of shirts, the Obama moment helped the fist bump cross over “into the professional realm and become business casual,” Williams adds, and now “it’s the Swiss Army knife of gestures.”

Image Credit... Illustrations by Kelsey Dake

The editors of the Merriam-Webster dictionary appear to agree. Noticing a surge in the use of the phrase “fist bump” in recent years, they anointed it as official English in 2011. “Fist bump” took its place in the dictionary, along with “tweet,” “helicopter parent” and “bromance.”

I LOVE YOU, MAN

Joe Peacock, a humorist, studies the gestures that men perform among men.

Tell me about the exploding fist bump. That’s a frat boy add-on to the regular fist bump. There’s a sound that you make while you do it. It’s like the onomatopoeia of the concept of bro-dom.

Could you make the sound of the exploding fist bump? PHWAHHHHHHHaaahhh. . . .

What exactly is the meaning of the fist pump, as opposed to the bump? It depends on which way your knuckles are facing. If the knuckles are inward while the head ducks, you’re saying, “I did it!” If you’re Bono, and you’re trying to get the crowd to chant, your knuckles are facing outward.

What about horns? That gesture means “Hell, yeah!” It started with Ronnie James Dio doing it in concerts, and parents attributed it to satanic worship.