handshake emoji meme

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This handshake emoji meme is the new handshake stock photo meme

Yet again, a meme heavily influenced by Ariana Grande.

Photo of Stacey Ritzen 

Stacey Ritzen

Internet Culture

Posted on Nov 5, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 2:24 am CDT

Earlier this year, an unusually positive, sarcasm-lacking meme surfaced on the internet as a means of bringing groups of people and things together with their commonalities by using stock photos of handshakes or people grasping hands. It was sort of like a cutesy version of a Venn diagram, only instead of overlapping circles, each group was represented by a limb or hand.

For instance, this example was used to represent all of the types of people who might be inclined to eat potatoes—whether the reason being that they’re allergic to refined carbs, non-meat eaters, picky eaters, or drunk.

https://twitter.com/bitterpola/status/1030415200225251328

Fast forward to a few months later, and the meme has now evolved (or devolved, depending on how you want to look at it) into people simply using a handshake emoji to connect similar ideas, albeit with a bit snarkier flex. Take, for example, the following tweet that went viral over the weekend comparing Ariana Grande’s newly released breakup single, “thank u, next,” to the song “The Good Side” by YouTube star Troy Sivan.

“Troye Sivan / Ariana Grande 🤝 respecting their exes,” the tweet read:

And then there were these other tweets riffing off of Grande’s new song:

This example compared the explicit lyrics to the Sheck Wes song “Mo Bamba” to the language one uses when stepping on a Lego in bare feet:

All in all, it’s a pretty versatile meme, as you can see from a handful of other examples on Twitter, joking about everything from politics to the popular game Fortnite:

https://twitter.com/joelymg/status/1059493816707633152

https://twitter.com/CharCherette/status/1059338206666084352

https://twitter.com/quianasalgado/status/1059304303330963461

This is not the first emoji-related meme that’s gone viral in recent weeks. Last month, a so-called “distance meme” employed the use of three ruler emojis and two red pushpin emojis as a way for people to poke fun of themselves by demonstrating how long it takes them to arrive at a foregone conclusion.

Emojis—is there anything they’re not good for?

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*First Published: Nov 5, 2018, 4:22 pm CST

Stacey Ritzen

Stacey Ritzen is a reporter and editor based in West Philadelphia with over 10 years' experience covering pop culture, web culture, entertainment, and news. You can follow her on Twitter @staceyritzen.

Stacey Ritzen