[Clenches Fist]

Submission 19,540

About

[Clenches Fist] is an action cue used in online conversations to convey a sudden rush of intense and typically undesirable feelings, such as anger, resentment or frustration, in a manner similar to the use of the expression [Rustling Intensifies].

Origin

The exact origin of the action cue is unknown. On May 21st, 2005, RPG.net^[5] Forums member StephenO submitted a thread titled "Clenches Fist 'Nooooooooooooo!'", mocking a scene from the film Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith in which the villain Darth Vader clenches his fist and yells "No!" after discovering his wife Padme has died.

Spread

On November 18th, 2011, Steam Forums^[2] member chaotic replied to a thread to complain about Valve's new social features with the action cue "clinches [sic] fist."

On the following day, Mirror Moon Forums^[4] member AlextheLazy used the action cue in a reply to a post about the vampires in video games produce by the Japanese game company Type-Moon. On September 27th, 2013, DeviantArtist^[3] DetectiveMar submitted a text post titled "Superhero meme yuuuuus," which included the action cue "clinches fist dramatically."

Notable Examples

On Tumblr

In October 2014, the action cue began circulating on Tumblr^[6] in text posts featuring sarcastic responses to various fandoms, typically employing the phrasal template "Oh you're into X? Man I love the way they just [clenches fist] Y." On October 21st, Tumblr user That-One-Trashy-Weeaboo^[1] submitted a post about the Japanese video game franchise Danganronpa with the "[clenches fist]" template. That same day, Tumblr user knneki posted a compilation of "[clenches fist]" posts. In the first 24 hours, the posts gathered upwards of 420 and 950 likes respectively.