"I've Been Ending Every Video With THIS — Here's What It Actually Means"

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]So, apparently, I have been closing every video with a satanic gesture.

[00:00:05]Good to know.

[00:00:06]And when I tell people that's not what I mean, the responses are, well, mixed.

[00:00:12]Hey everybody, welcome or welcome back to the channel. I'm Rachel.

[00:00:16]Now, I'll be honest, I knew when I started using this gesture at the end of every video that not everybody was going to know [music] what I meant by it. And I get that. Symbols mean things, but it also made me kind of curious, because it turns out that this one gesture means at least eight completely different things, depending on where you are, who raised you, [music] and apparently whether you're at a metal concert or a Texas football game. So, let's talk about it.

[00:00:44]Now, I have been throwing this at the end of every video since I started this channel and long before that. And I get questions about it all the time.

[00:00:53]Most people are genuinely curious, but some are pretty adamant.

[00:00:58]Most people get it, you know, rock on, keep rocking through life. See you next time. But some people are convinced I mean something else entirely, and every once in a while, when I explain what I actually mean by it, they'll argue the point.

[00:01:12]Which is a special kind of interesting, being told what you mean by your own hand gesture.

[00:01:17]So, instead of getting defensive about it, which honestly I am not, I did what I always do when something gets stuck in my brain.

[00:01:25]I had to figure it out.

[00:01:27]All of it. Because that is how my brain works.

[00:01:31]Once something hooks me, I can't just look it up and let it go. Which is probably a character flaw, but you know, here we are.

[00:01:40]So, I went down this huge rabbit hole at midnight. And now you have to hear about it.

[00:01:46]>> [snorts] >> You're welcome.

[00:01:48]Okay, let's start with the most obvious one, rock and roll.

[00:01:52]Ronnie James Dio is usually credited with making this gesture famous in the metal world when he replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath in 1979.

[00:02:01]He apparently didn't want to copy Ozzy's thing because Ozzy was known for throwing up double peace signs at concerts. So, Dio needed his own gesture.

[00:02:11]He landed on this one. Said he got it from his Italian grandmother who used to used it to ward off the evil eye.

[00:02:18]He threw it the crowds, crowds threw it back, and it became the rock on symbol.

[00:02:23]Except Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler would like a word.

[00:02:28]Geezer says he's been doing that exact gesture since 1971, has pictures to prove it, and claims that Dio asked him about it on tour and said, "Everybody's throwing the peace sign at Ozzy, and that's an Ozzy thing." So, the origin of the most famous rock gesture in history is itself disputed.

[00:02:48]Which feels kind of appropriate.

[00:02:51]And honestly, even Geezer wasn't first.

[00:02:54]John Lennon's cartoon character is throwing this exact gesture on the Yellow Submarine album cover from 1968.

[00:03:02]Nobody accused the Beatles of Satanism over it.

[00:03:05]Well, actually, I don't know that for sure, but probably not over that specifically.

[00:03:11]And there's other pictures of Lennon doing it.

[00:03:14]Then, there is Gene Simmons, who tried to trademark it in 2017.

[00:03:19]Trademark a hand gesture humans have been making for centuries.

[00:03:24]And the beautiful punchline?

[00:03:26]>> [snorts] >> The version he was trying to claim wasn't even this one. It was the thumbs up version. The American Sign Language sign for I love you.

[00:03:34]So, you know, whatever. I guess Gene's going to gene.

[00:03:38]Now, Dio himself actually said later in an interview that the gesture kind of lost its meaning for him when it went mainstream and Britney Spears fans started throwing it at her concerts.

[00:03:49]Which I mean, I get it, Ronnie. I get it. That one stings a little even from where I'm standing.

[00:03:57]Now, here's where the whole thing got genuinely interesting to me.

[00:04:01]I am a Gen X kid. You know, I grew up with this meaning one thing, rock on. I have said it before, music has been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember, and this is just part of that language. It is in my bones at this point. I use it at the end of every video because it's genuinely what I mean. Keep going. Keep rocking through whatever life is throwing at you. I will see you next time.

[00:04:27]Now, I even use it as my Jeep wave. If you know, you know, we're kind of a whole thing.

[00:04:33]But Dio's grandmother didn't invent it either, not even close. This gesture has been showing up across cultures for centuries.

[00:04:42]In Italy and across the Mediterranean, it's known as la corna, the horns, and it's a protective gesture. Fingers down and you're warding off the evil eye, keeping bad luck away. But fingers pointed up directly at someone, that is a completely different story. That's an insult, a pretty significant one.

[00:05:03]In Italy, Greece, Spain, and across the Mediterranean, it's essentially calling somebody a cuckold, implying that their spouse has been unfaithful. Same gesture, completely flipped meaning.

[00:05:16]Just point it at a different direction.

[00:05:19]You know, somebody should have probably written that down. Maybe [snorts] they did, but I clearly missed it.

[00:05:25]And then, I found the Buddhist connection, which genuinely stopped me mid-rabbit hole.

[00:05:30]In Buddhist tradition, this gesture shows up as the Karana Mudra, used to expel negative energy, banish negative thoughts, demons, or evil spirits. It's on statues of the Buddha, has been for centuries.

[00:05:45]It's also said to reduce anxiety, cleanse energy, and enhance focus.

[00:05:50]So, the same gesture that's gotten some people worked up in my comment section has been sitting unnoticed on Buddha statues for longer than most countries have existed, doing genuinely useful work this whole time.

[00:06:04]That one I had to sit with for a minute.

[00:06:06]Then, there's Greece, and this one got a little personal for me. My grandfather emigrated from Greece before World War I. Never taught his family Greek, never talked much about what he left behind, but that is a story for another day.

[00:06:22]The word for cuckolded in Greek literally means horned. So, I have been cheerfully throwing this gesture at my Greek ancestors for years.

[00:06:32]Sorry, papous. I didn't know.

[00:06:35]Now, no offense to my ancestors, but I'm going to keep doing it.

[00:06:40]Now, fun fact, Marvel Studios actually had to digitally adjust Benedict Cumberbatch's hand on the Multiverse of Madness posters for the Italian market for this exact reason. So, at least I guess I'm in good company.

[00:06:56]I also got a Freemason comment once. So, I looked into it. Turns out most of it traces back to something called the Taxil hoax. A guy in the 1800s who literally made up stories about Masonic devil worship to somehow make fun of the Catholic Church.

[00:07:14]Somebody made it up, it spread, and here we are, 150 years later, still arguing about a hand gesture.

[00:07:22]Which honestly feels like a little bit of an upgrade.

[00:07:26]And yes, there are spiritual and religious connections, too, but they are not all the same thing.

[00:07:32]In Wicca, this gesture is used in ritual to invoke the Horned God, a deity associated with nature, wilderness, and the cycle of life. Not the devil, not even close to the devil.

[00:07:45]The Horned God predates Christianity by a long stretch and has nothing to do with Satan.

[00:07:51]That association came later when the early Christian Church decided that anything with horns was automatically suspicious.

[00:07:58]Which is frankly a whole other vibe and rabbit hole.

[00:08:03]In LaVeyan Satanism, founded in 1966, it's used as a salutation. And worth knowing, LaVeyan Satanism is largely atheistic.

[00:08:13]Satan is used as a symbol of individualism and self-determination, not as a deity being worshipped.

[00:08:20]So, even the so-called satanic use of this gesture is more layered than it looks from the outside.

[00:08:27]Is the gesture inherently evil?

[00:08:29]No. Has it been used in ways some people find dark or offensive? Yes. But those are genuinely different traditions with different meanings, and lumping them together does a disservice to both.

[00:08:43]Now, I know some of you are probably thinking, "Okay, Rachel, if it bothers people, why not just stop using it?" And look, I get that. But my intention has never been to insult or offend anyone, and I am not going to change something that is genuinely part of who I am based on what someone else decides it means.

[00:09:02]Now, and then, there's Texas. University of Texas Longhorns fans have been throwing that exact gesture at football games since 1955.

[00:09:11]70 years.

[00:09:13]It's been the official hand sign of the university students and alumni to show school pride whenever and wherever Longhorns gather.

[00:09:22]That is their wording, by the way, not mine.

[00:09:25]Completely enthusiastically, completely non-satanically, in state stadiums full of people who are thinking about exactly one thing.

[00:09:38]Okay, then.

[00:09:39]>> [snorts] >> They're thinking about exactly one thing, and it is not the devil.

[00:09:45]And Texas isn't even alone. Other schools have their own version.

[00:09:50]South Florida uses it for bull horns.

[00:09:53]Angelo State bends the knuckles for ram's horns. The gesture just keeps getting borrowed and repurposed because that's what gestures do.

[00:10:01]>> [snorts] >> And honestly, this doesn't even cover all of it.

[00:10:05]There are meanings attached to this gesture in countries and cultures that we haven't even gotten to.

[00:10:11]The rabbit hole The rabbit hole goes deeper than midnight allows.

[00:10:20]Okay, I'm sorry.

[00:10:22]>> [laughter] >> All right, so here's what we've got. One gesture, depending on who's looking at it, rock on, ward off evil, Buddhist protection, insult, Wiccan ritual, satanic salute, Freemasons, apparently, and 70 years of Longhorn pride. Same hand position, completely different meanings.

[00:10:44]Every single one of them real to the person who's using it.

[00:10:47]And that's kind of the whole thing, isn't it? Symbols don't always come with meaning baked in.

[00:10:53]People bring the meaning. You bring your background, your beliefs, your experiences, and you see what you brought.

[00:11:01]The gesture doesn't change. The context does everything, which is why arguing with somebody about what they mean by their own gesture is a fascinating waste of energy.

[00:11:12]I know what I mean when I throw it. You know what I You see when I do.

[00:11:17]Those two things can both be true and neither of us has to be wrong.

[00:11:21]And I am genuinely grateful to the people who ask, who are curious enough to say, "Hey, what do you mean by that?"

[00:11:28]instead of just deciding they already know.

[00:11:31]I mean, we all know what they say about assuming.

[00:11:35]The people who ask are the ones who actually want to understand something rather than just confirm what they already believe.

[00:11:42]That is worth something.

[00:11:45]I don't mean to offend anybody with this gesture. It's just part of who I am at this point. You know, it's been in my vocabulary longer than this channel has existed. If somebody chooses to be offended knowing my intent, I genuinely can't help that.

[00:12:00]What I can tell you is what I mean when I throw it.

[00:12:03]Again, I mean rock on, keep going.

[00:12:07]And turns out maybe ward off the bad energy, banish the negative thoughts, reduce the anxiety, and enhance the focus while we're at it. Because I kind of love that.

[00:12:21]Turns out my midnight rabbit hole had a pretty good ending after all.

[00:12:26]Anyway you look at it, it's a part of me and it is not going anywhere.

[00:12:32]The more you know.

[00:12:33]So tell me, what does this gesture mean to you?

[00:12:37]Thanks for watching. Take care of you.

[00:12:38]Reggie and I will see you in the next video. Bye-bye.