The Middle Finger

We have seen the globalization of many products. What I will be discussing here is the globalization of a social act. You could also say its a global culture.

We all know what the middle finger is. We know what it means when we're exposed to it, and sometimes, we use it to express ourselves too. It is a global culture because it didn't originate from singapore, unlike for instance, singlish.

I'm not exactly sure where this act came from, but i'm sure we'll agree that it isn't a hybrid culture that emerged from the Chinese , Malay and Indian migrants. If so, how does this act, wherever it came from, become a part of our lives?

My best guess would be the contact with hollywood movies. Or it could be due to the period of british colonialism? Recall the first time you saw the middle finger, was it from a foreigner or a local? For most of us, we would have learnt it from our peers. For others (including those peers whom we learnt it from and their predecesors), it most definitely would be from hollywood films. How else besides social interaction can you learn something totally new? It has to be the mass media.

If singaporeans learnt about the middle finger from hollywood, then it would make sense to think that everywhere the hollywood reached would have learnt about it too.

So, the next time you brandish your middle finger, you know your participating in a global culture. Cheers!

Dongchou