Hand Thing Trend / Challenge

About

Hand Thing Trend or Hand Thing Challenge is a trend on TikTok in which users perform a movement where they spin their hand or hands from a palm-up position to a palm-forward position, fingers spread, to the beat of a slow remix of the song "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. The trend was started by TikToker @ziakieta in August 2022 and went viral that month, with some users confused about the trend's virality.

Origin

On August 4th, 2022, TikToker^[1] @ziakeita posted a video captioned "hands" where she holds out one hand palm up, fingers spread, her arm bent at the elbow, then spins her hand around and spins them back to their original position to the beat of the song, garnering over 26.6 million views in just under two weeks (shown below).

Spread

The trend spread, mostly under the same original sound, over the following weeks. Many of the videos feature captions wondering how people are going viral for doing the "hand thing." On August 8th, 2022, TikToker^[2] @nephilim.kos posted a video doing the hand thing with handcuffs on, garnering over 16.4 million views in a week (shown below, left). On August 9th, TikToker^[3] @estelle.diary posted a video doing the hand thing over her cat, garnering over 10.6 million views in six days (shown below, right).

On August 10th, TikToker^[4] @speedloverz posted a tutorial on how to do the hand thing, garnering over 19.7 million views in five days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References