What You "Posed" To Do!?

      One thing I love about being black and our culture is how we can take normal things and go the extra mile with it. I don't need to go into detail about things because we all know of something that we put our own personal touch on. I'm here today to discuss the art of posing for pictures. I'm mainly talking about the fellas right now so ladies y'all can rest easy for now. Whatever happened to the days of just smiling and standing with, let's just say, your hands in your pockets? It was simple right? Someone would snap a pic and you'd do one of those two things or even both. If you were in the picture with a girl you'd put your arm around her. Those were pretty standard poses in my opinion. Then somewhere along the way we had to change the game.... Forever... So allow me to quickly breakdown the evolution of the pose.

             The Peace Sign- This was when the game changed. Two fingers up signaling peace had become the pose for all pictures. Men, women, kids, everybody was doing it. In high school one of our boys called it "Rockin the Peace" and we even had the old white people who supported the football team doing and saying it. Then it became the "deuces." This was acceptable across the board and became the norm for picture taking.

             The Salute- Around 1997-98 Terrell Davis, former running back for the Denver Broncos, introduced the "Mile High Salute." This touchdown celebration was simply a salute. I'm guessing it was to the military, which is where it comes from obviously. Of course "we" figured this would be a great pose and there you go. The "Salute" pose. I can't lie I'm guilty of this one. Earlier this year for my brother's birthday celebration I did it twice. In true negro fashion thought I only used two fingers smh. Don't ask what it meant I just thought it looked cool. 

             The Praying Hands- This of course has a biblical or religious origin but do we care about that? NOT AT ALL! First it was a tattoo but that wasn't enough. Somebody and I'm guessing a rapper decided to pose like this now this has become a favorite among the hip hop community. I'm not one to judge they might actually be praying. For what though I'll never know. Success? Money? A hit? Kush connect? Groupies? Maybe all in one brief picture. I haven't done this yet but I'm just waiting on the right time to break it out!

              The Pointless Pointing- The first person I saw pointlessly pointing at something or at least called it that was Charlemagne The God. It goes back further though. You'd put one finger up to simply say "We're number one" after winning the big game. It was simple back then but guess what happened... "We" had to take that as well! Now on any given picture you'll see somebody pointing at something. I'm guessing it's something outside of the picture but who knows. All I know is hand placement is everything! No lower than the stomach and no higher than the chest. I don't think I've done this but I might as well. 

      So that's the history of the picture pose brought to you by black people everywhere. You definitely have to love how we can make something out of nothing.