Our crusade against the medieval practice of hand shaking continues to attract high profile supporters. The Boston Globe jumped on board in July, noting that Northeastern University asked graduates not to shake hands when receiving their diplomas. A german city stopped the practice among city officials in August. I’m still working on getting National Handshake Day changed to “National Barricade Yourself In Your House And Don’t Go Outside Day.”
Now, CNN jumps in with an article, saying “The H1N1 swine flu virus is putting our most familiar gesture of greeting — handshakes — at risk.” They note that “on June 3, 2008, then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama tenderly fist bumped with his wife Michelle,” and “on September 22, 2009, the Dalai Lama was welcomed to Memphis, Tennessee, not with a handshake but with a fist bump from interim Memphis Mayor Myron Lowery.”
It’s the beginning of the end of the handshake, people. When the Dalai frickin Lama himself, the twelfth (thirteenth?) son of the Lama, joins your cause, you’re sure to get bumper stickers on all the tree hugger’s cars.
Free Tibet. And end the handshake.
References to: medieval practices? bumper stickers? tree huggers?
You lost me here.
This post is not related to “tech” or to “crunch”.
Hence, why is it posted on a blog named “techcrunch”?
This site is being less and less technology based as each day goes by.
It’s ok – slow news day.
“This post is not related to “tech” or to “crunch”.”
So you’d like more crunch related articles? Erm. ok.
You don’t know the background of this saga dude. Mike is on a mission
Background or not, his point is well taken, anti-handshaking is for pussies.
Let नमस्त (Namasté) be the replacement for handshaking.
the russians started it, those… commies! lol!
http://www.yout...h?v=x1C_NWMRs8Q
Fist-bumping the Dalai Lama? Really? I’ve never met the Dalai Lama and am not up-to-date on Tibetan greetings, but wouldn’t some sort of bow be more appropriate?
Seriously! The ORIGINAL hands-free greeting.
Actually a greeting between Tibetans is to “headbutt”. A monk will grasp the sides of your head and touch his forehead to yours.
Very interesting. Does anyone have a video link of Mr. Lama bumping fists?
LMGTFY: http://www.yout...h?v=yzd8GBOkEZE
wowowow. thanks Gregg!
the Dalai Lama, knew nothing of fist bumping. He was being shown how to do it.
I still prefer the disease-sharing–but trust-building–ceremony of hand shaking. All this will lead to is a society with a crippled immune system!
Cool trivia I learned from Oktoberfest recently: The German cheers “prost” actually means “health”. Because of the act of toasting inevitable leads to cross-glass contamination. (Some of your beer flies into my glass, and visa versa) So when you toast and say “prost”, you’re effectively saying, “My beer is your beer. Your beer is my beer. We’re not trying to poison each other”.
lol this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read all morning. Maybe he was like “wha’dup Dali’?” *fist bump*. Geezuz.
big hitter, the Lama.
Arrington in the sack: http://bit.ly/k24es
hah.
That would be the 14th Dalai Lama… High Lamas are reincarnated so his holiness is the 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama not some number of kids. =)
yes. well the quote is from caddy shack, so blame them.
lol… btw thanks for the Free Tibet shout out
Free South Africa !!!!
Oh, nevermind, I think they’re already free.
I honestly dont know if this handshake thing is a joke
Handshaking has something to do with Free Tibet? Fuck those commies.
Hm… It seems we need to purge our culture from our self and accept any other culture on the planet as better for some bizarre reason. Hand shaking is cool. Too bad swine flu is gonna kill me for it… but so what? SARS was a big deal in a lot of asian countries.. and they never shake hands… So you prove nothing. Fist bumping is soo ghetto 1985..
“…in other news, with real kisses replaced by (non-blown) fake ones, hugs rendered obsolete by furtive glances, intercourse usurped by mutual, non-touching masturbation, and all ‘barbaric’ forms of physical contact eliminated, the last, non-reproducing generation of humankind, hobbled and pallid from lack of exposure to bacteria, is finally coming to an end at the hands of the far more adaptable germs and viruses, who merely mutated to chiefly airborne form. The militant anti-bacterial movement can be traced to an obscure 21st century technology ‘blogger’, sometime investor and crank known only by the name ‘@arrington’, who is now considered to be a primary catalyst in the downfall of the human race. Back to you, Lou….”
Go eat some yogurt, Mike.
hahaha. I love it. The militant … movement…
+42
Can you provide a polite dialogue for how to go about this? I’m a 24 year old in business, and I agree with you, but how do I tell a 60 year old CEO that I don’t want to shake his hand?
you don’t. you just suffer through it and carry hand sanitizer.
Or you could build your immune system and take care of your health and stop being so anal
I find that anal helps my immune system
Umm… Anyone heard of soap and water? The magical combination of the two … stay with me… KILLS GERMS! I know, it’s amazing what modern scientific discoveries can do these days! So, we don’t need to kill the hand shake, we just need to wash out hands every once in a while.
Lick the palm of your right hand seconds before shaking.
Why so worried about a few germs, if on his death bed Lowery would receive total consciousness?
Doesn’t the handshake have that going for it?
which is nice.
BTW, did the Lama say to Lowery, “Oh, you don’t get no cold?”
I don’t know how people can so quickly toss aside the idea of the handshake. If you’re doing it because of the flu, I have two words for you, “soap” and “water.” Learn to wash your hands correctly and get into the habit of washing them throughout the day, especially before you eat. Don’t touch your face (eyes, mouth, nose) and you’ll be fine.
The handshake is invaluable in my opinion as it can tell you so much about a person in about 1-2 seconds, even where they’re from. Call me old school, but I’m not abandoning ship just because some bacteria or a virus might find its way onto my hand in the process. Bunch of wusses.
How does a hand shake indicate any of this?
What exactly is there to be learned from a handshake, please elaborate. Also don’t you think that handshake deception is prevelant? i.e. a person aiming to deceive has learned an “appropriate” handshake and can perpetrate it at will.
A handshake can often be read in the same manner that body language can be. Sure, people can fake it, but more often than not a handshake is an “honest exchange.” You can tell if someone is nervous or hurried or aggressive or timid. Beyond the handshake itself is the body language and eye contact associated with it.
In that same vein, it always amazes me how many people have terrible handshakes, especially in the business world.
Agreed. Any form of human contact is to be avoided at all costs.
I wouldnt shake Obama’s hand either
There is probably as black helicopter hovering silently over your house right now.
Wuss.
I’m not a doctor or a scientist, but I am a parent volunteering to supervise the OVERFLOW room full of sick kids at the local middle school. It feels like a scene from a movie.
It’s not a tuma.
+1 Gotta love Ahnuld.
thank you for posting that. i read ben k’s comment and didn’t get the context and why i was sitting infront of my computer thinking, “there’s someone who speaks just like that.” complete duh and now ping moments.
Yup, let’s just remove another method of building up our immune system, ‘cos someone with a Howard Hughes complex and doesn’t trust the hygiene level of the person they’re greeting. There’s a reason most of the world think America is filed with no-sack imbeciles, this is a great example.
Somebody fire this guy
I’m sure this will only add the to perception that BHO has an abnormally inflated ego….no one touches the Obama.
Say “Namaste!”, the indian way !
Not sure that I mind germs but please start noticing how often men exit a stall in the bathroom and proceed to leave without washing. Even assuming that they were only adjusting their tie they have locked and unlocked the stall where there is a high concentration of fecal matter. This is filthy, please keep your bogus phychologically penetrative handshake to your self.
omg. it’s not just men it’s the females too. people are gross everywhere all the time. they just don’t think, or if they do they say i’ll do this later, it doesn’t matter, it’s not going to hurt me, that loser didn’t want to shake my had what an anal twit. etc. that kind of stuff without quotations.
People are turning into such wimps, the handshake isn’t going anywhere. Get over it.
Funny, I thought that handshaking was one of the LEAST likely means of flu transmission.
Oh look, here a Wikipedia article about the flu:
http://en.wikip...rg/wiki/The_flu
“Airborne aerosols have been thought to cause most infections, although which means of transmission is most important is not absolutely clear”
That means if somebody sneezes, and you unknowingly walk through that air space after wards, you have a good chance of being infected.
But why let a few facts stand in the way of sensationalism and panic?
+41+1
(coz TC said “Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!” when I tried +42 again)
LOL..!! @ “Dalai frickin Lama” ..
Let’s say NAMASTE ( the indian way ).
Awesome! Now, I want to get rid of the European double kiss, inappropriate hugs and voicemail.
this is such an irrational fear. do you touch doorknobs? handrails? shopping carts? tables? car doors? or, really, anything? b/c those things are at least as dirty as another hand. How about eating food?
Saw something recently about a study that showed washing your hands/using hand sanitizer doesn’t keep your hands clean for very long. Within minutes the number of bacteria were back up to pre-wash levels (due to, you know, living life and….touching things <– the horror!!).
+43-1
You are cracking me up
you keep looking at this from the “shakee’s” perspective rather than the “shaker’s”. The little people usually fall in the latter category. We move up the ladder by kissing a**, the last thing we care about is catching cooties off a hand shake.
Well this is all fud. The dali lama got the fist bump not because of h1n1, but because that mayor wanted to be like Obama and do a fist bump with a major figure. Obama and his wife. Tell me how does it look to shake hands with your wife. The fist bump in their case was like an affectionate high five. The handshake is safe for now.
A local hospital where I live even has signs up warning about hand-shaking and the possibility of spreading disease and the major importance of washing your hands.
My place of work even has hand sanitizer stations now sprawled throughout our building. On Monday each of us got a box of kleenex and a small bottle of hand sanitizer in our mailboxes. (There are 1500+ employees in the building).
People are too paranoid.
Why do people continue to post that the articles are not related to technology, or that it must be a slow news day?
Can’t people sometimes just write interesting things? You keep coming back to TechCrunch, so obviously they offer something you like. So deal with the stuff you don’t.
thank god for flus. i am with you on this because i hate handshakes and the best news i heard today when i woke up was some report on the radio about the some places in the US banning hugs, cities in france are looking at banning those air besos/kisses or whatever they call them, la bise i think. anyways google air kisses france and it’s there. i heard something is happening in ireland, scotland, in india, and many other places. handshakes, hugs, kisses, i don’t care. get rid of them all and move on to namaste or whatever that is called.
flus=flues.
Well, now that the metrosexual fad is somewhat over, we need something new to continue the wussification of the American man. Good thing we have tech blogs to perform the required propaganda
sad for you, mike, that the nba rumor was only just that: http://nba.fanh...handshake-myth/
I can probably get my company to do this… add another 6000 people… ill keep u guys posted!
Oh yes Mike, they’re joining ‘your’ cause. It’s all because of you isn’t it.
Get over yourself… and your OCD.
am not.
WTF?!?!?!
Handshaking is cool!!! What the fuc%&$ problem do you, antisocial persons, have with handshaking?!?! Maybe you don’t have strength in your handshake and you are fed up of people making jokes of it?
The only way I will change the handshaking is for a hubshaking, or a kisshaking (this with women only if popsible)… Otherwise I’ll continue handshaking thanks…
Arrington are u serious when you write about this crap? I mean, do you REALLY think handshaking will EVER be dropped? This. Is. Not. Going. To. Happen. Stop it, it just make you ridiculous. Talk about tech, please.
Caddyshack haven’t seen that in years!!!!