The Hand That Is Always Slightly Faster Than You
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About
The Hand That Is Always Slightly Faster Than You or simply The Hand is a fictional giant disembodied hand that crushes one person on Earth every 24 hours. The Hand is always slightly faster than you, no matter how fast you run. The Hand was created by Redditor /u/fedorasaurusrex, now /u/HandCreator, in December 2019 when they made a post to /r/worldjerking claiming the giant hand exists in "their world," inspiring the /r/The_Hand subreddit in 2020 and further memes about The Hand over the following years.
Origin
On December 8th, 2019, a now-deleted Redditor, purportedly /u/fedorasaurusrex, made a post to /r/worldjerking[1] writing, "In my world there's a giant disembodied hand that zooms around the planet and crushes one random person with its index finger every day. It's called The Hand and it's always slightly faster than you," garnering over 1,600 upvotes in four years (shown below). The user who purportedly made this post now goes by /u/HandCreator.[2]
![Posted by u/[deleted] 4 years ago 1.6k In my world there's a giant disembodied hand that zooms around the planet and crushes one random person with its index finger every day. It's called The Hand and it's always slightly faster than you. Sorry, this post was deleted by the person who originally posted it. It doesn't appear in any feeds, and anyone with a direct link to it will see a message like this one.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/719/797/b56.jpg "In my world there's a giant disembodied hand that zooms around the planet and crushes one random person with its index finger")
On July 26th, 2020, Instagram[3] user site_17b posted a screenshot of a 4chan post made on an unknown date about the giant disembodied hand, reading, "How would history change if there was a giant disembodied hand that zooms around the planet and crushes one random person with its index finger every day? It's called The Hand and it's always slightly faster than you." The post gained over 8,400 likes in three years and is often thought to be the origin of the creature.
Spread
On July 29th, 2020, a Reddit[4] user posted to /r/AskReddit asking what people would do if The Hand existed, garnering around 20 comments and upvotes in three years. On December 29th, the /r/The_Hand[5] subreddit was created, a subreddit dedicated specifically to memes and posts about The Hand. That day, /u/EnslavedDownvotes posted a running Peter meme about the hand to the subreddit, garnering over 300 upvotes in three years (shown below).
Memes about The Hand became increasingly popular throughout 2020 and 2021, specifically on the /r/The_Hand on Reddit.[6][7] For example, on December 29th, /u/-ieatass666- posted a meme to /r/The_Hand where The Hand can be seen in a reflection in a bottle of Coca-Cola, garnering over 900 upvotes in three years (shown below, left). On February 12th, 2021, /u/AboveAverageChickenn posted a trollface incident meme to /r/The_Hand that gained over 930 upvotes in two years (shown below, right). On July 5th, the 4chan post was reposted to /r/4chan on Reddit,[8] garnering over 10,000 upvotes in two years.
On January 28th, 2023, Redditor /u/jumdoos posted a meme about The Hand to /r/surrealmemes,[9] garnering over 11,400 upvotes in 11 months (shown below). On December 15th, X[10] user @ShitpostGate reposted the meme, garnering over 17,000 likes in under a day.
Various Examples
Search Interest
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Top Comments
iBlewupthemoon
Dec 16, 2023 at 11:09PM EST
Kommando_Kaijin
Dec 16, 2023 at 10:33PM EST in reply to