KISS FRONT-MAN GENE Simmons is claiming to have invented the well known hand gesture for rock.
The 67-year-old wants to trademark it for “entertainment, namely, live performances by a musical artist; personal appearances by a musical artist”. We’ve all seen it and we all know what it means, but here’s a reminder:
The first problem with Gene Simmons claiming he invented this hand gesture is the fact that NME discovered that it predates his timeline. John Lennon made a similar gesture on the cover of The Beatles’ 1966 ‘Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby’.
The late Black Sabbath frontman Ronnie James Dio was once credited with popularising the gesture and insisted that he had not invented it, that it would have been “like saying I invented the wheel.”
The second problem is the fact that he’s not even doing it correctly.
Twitter users expressed their frustration at the fact that he was not tucking his thumb in.
It was quickly pointed out that the symbol Gene Simmons has been making all this time is the American Sign Language for “I love you.”
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Deaf actor and model Nyle DiMarco also added that one of the meanings of the ‘devil hands’ while the thumb tucked in is the world ‘bullshit’.
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That pretty succintly sums up the idea of trying to trademark a hand gesture.
