Hand Turkeys

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About

Hand Turkeys are drawings made in which a person draws a turkey by tracing their hand and making the fingers look like feathers and the thumb look like the head and neck. They are commonly drawn by children around Thanksgiving. Online, the concept has been parodied and exceptional examples of hand turkeys have been compiled in articles.

Origin

While the origin of the hand turkey is unclear, a definition for "handturkey" was added to Urban Dictionary on November 5th, 2007.^[1]

TOP DEFINITION handturkey A turkey drawn by placing your hand on the drawing canvas (i.e. chalckboard, paper, wall, etc.) and trace your hand, add a beak, feet, maybe a wing, and that little red flap of skin thing that is customary for turkeys to have. Come on class, today in kindergarten we will make handturkeys! YAY! #hand #turkey #doodle #gobble #thanksgiving #doc by Mr. Riggs November 05,2007

Spread

The history of the hand turkey has been parodied several times in satirical articles.^[2]^[3] A satirical history posted by accumulated-errata joked with illustrations of hand turkeys appearing in cavemen times and at the meeting between Pilgrims and Native Americans (shown below).

Additionally, creative hand turkeys are often featured on entertainment publications. Both Mashable^[4] and Huffington Post^[5] have run listicles featuring creative and artistically interesting hand turkeys in the 2010s (examples shown below).