Imagine raising your thumb to say “ok” during a trip abroad and discovering, to your surprise, that you have just offended your interlocutor. It may seem paradoxical, but many gestures that we consider intuitive or universal are not at all. According to studies on non-verbal communication, gestures function as real cultural codes: they are learned within a society and their meaning can change radically from one context to another.
The thumbs up is an emblematic example of this cultural variability. Widespread today in much of the world as a positive sign or emoji of approval or agreement, this gesture has had different and sometimes opposite meanings over time. His story shows how even the simplest hand movement can reflect profound cultural transformations, oscillating between approval, challenge and even social threat.
The meaning of the thumbs up gesture and its origins
Many believe that the thumbs up derives directly from ancient Rome, where it would have indicated grace for a gladiator defeated in the Arena. However, historians do not agree on this interpretation.
The Latin expression “thumbs down” or “thumb pointing” appears frequently in accounts of gladiatorial combat, but the precise meaning remains uncertain. Some interpretations suggest that the raised thumb may have indicated the death sentence, while the clenched fist with the hidden thumb was a signal of mercy.
This would completely overturn the modern meaning of approval: what we today see and interpret as “okay” may have, in ancient times, been a deadly gesture.
The association with the modern positive meaning in fact developed much later, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world between the 19th and 20th centuries.
During World War II, for example, US soldiers began using the thumbs up to remotely indicate and communicate that everything was under control or that a mission was successful with no injuries. From there the gesture progressively spread as a symbol of approval, up to the present day with the arrival of “likes”.
Comparing cultures: the thumbs up symbol in various countries
Cross-culturally, the thumbs-up is far from universal. Studies of sociology and non-verbal communication between different cultures demonstrate how the thumb has historically been associated with threats or aggressive gestures in many cultures around the world.
In some ancient oriental sources, in fact, the erect thumb indicated a similar meaning to the modern middle finger, communicating challenge and hostility. Surprisingly, even today, the thumbs up can be offensive in many areas of the world.
In Iran, Iraq and some regions of the Middle East, the gesture is still traditionally considered an insult. Even in some parts of West Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, the gesture may be perceived as provocative or vulgar.
In other contexts, geographically and culturally closer to us, however, the gesture has nothing to do with approval, but with its functionality. In this sense, in Finland or Sweden the thumb up is very often used as a simple number one or, in the language of professional divers and in other sports, it means the ascent to the surface or other direction indications.
Emojis and the role of social media
In recent decades, however, globalization and social media are progressively standardizing the positive meaning of the thumbs up, even if in more traditional communities the risk of misunderstanding remains high.
With the arrival of smartphones and social platforms, gestures such as the thumbs up have become standardized icons in the form of emoji.
The thumbs-up symbol, used to indicate “like”, is now shared billions of times every day around the world. This process is helping to standardize the meaning of some gestures, especially among younger generations, who learn them first on the screen than in everyday life.
In a certain sense, emoji are creating a new form of “digital body language”: gestures that no longer pass through physical movement, but through graphic symbols.
