About

Bro Fist is an Internet slang term referring to the "fist bump" greeting gesture which is performed by two participants who touch closed fists together. On imageboards and discussion forums, the gesture is often iterated as an ASCII-based copypasta resembling a clenched fist.

Origin

The fist bump gesture may have originated in the late 1800s as a way for boxer’s to greet one another while wearing thick gloves.^[6] St. Louis Cardinals baseball player Stan Musial, who played in the Major League Baseball from 1941 to 1963, has been cited as the possible inventor of the gesture as an informal greeting, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.^[5] The earliest known ASCII iteration of a bro fist was posted on the imageboard 4chan^[1] on October 16th, 2008 (shown below).

………..
……………….__
…………./´¯/'…'/´¯¯`·¸
………./'/…/…./……./¨¯\
……..('(…´…´…. ¯~/'…')
………\……………..'…../
……….''…\………. _.·´
…………\…………..(
BRO FIST

IF YOU DONT POST THIS TO 5 BROS THEN YOU ARENT A BRO

Spread

On October 17th, 2008, DeviantArtist^[7] Doyora uploaded an illustration of a clinched fist titled “Bro Fist,” with the ASCII copypasta included in the description field. On November 19th, Urban Dictionary^[8] user DatRogue submitted the same ASCII art in an entry for the term “bro fist.” On December 21st, 2009, FunnyJunk^[9] user Graffiti posted an image macro of a fist with the caption “place fist here, bro / Brofist” (shown below, left). On October 2nd, 2010, FunnyJunk user faggotcaterpillar submitted a photograph of a baby making a fist bump hand gesture in a post titled “Brofist,” (shown below, right).

On May 29th, 2011, YouTuber Schnitzel Teller uploaded a video titled “Brofist,” featuring an animation of two characters from the online shooter game Team Fortress 2 bumping fists (shown below).

On June 20th, Redditor Madizmal submitted an image of two horses touching hooves (shown below) in a /r/pics^[11] post titled “Brofist.” Prior to being archived, the post gained over 2,900 up votes and 80 comments.

On February 17th, 2012, YouTuber tosermate uploaded a video titled “Epic Brofist,” in which a man punches a hole through his monitor in a failed attempt to fist bump with YouTube gamecaster PewDiePie on screen. (shown below, left). In the first two years, the video garnered upwards of 520,000 views and 1,900 comments. On April 27th, PewDiePie uploaded a video in which he attempts to fist bump random strangers on the street (shown below, right), gathering more than 2.41 million views and 27,500 comments over the next year and a half.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References