# Bro Fist Bro Fist is internet slang for the fist bump greeting, best known online as an ASCII copypasta of a clenched fist that spread through 4chan, DeviantArt, and FunnyJunk starting in October 2008. YouTuber PewDiePie later brought the gesture to a wider audience through videos featuring bro fist sign-offs and street fist bumps. ## Overview Bro Fist is internet slang for the fist bump greeting, where two friends tap closed fists together to say hello or celebrate a moment[4]. Online, the term is tied to a specific ASCII copypasta drawn to look like a clenched fist, made from slashes, dots, and parentheses, which spread on forums and message boards as a reply people pasted to greet each other[4]. The art is often accompanied by a chain-letter style dare like 'bro fist if you don't post this to five other bros you're not a bro'[4]. Off the internet, the fist bump has a longer history that the meme borrows from. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has floated St. Louis Cardinals player Stan Musial, who played in Major League Baseball from 1941 to 1963, as a possible inventor of the informal version of the greeting[1]. ## How It Spread The image macro version arrived on FunnyJunk in December 2009 as a fist drawing captioned 'place fist here, bro.' A photograph of a baby making a fist bump appeared on the same site in October 2010, and on June 20, 2011, Redditor Madizmal posted an image of two horses touching hooves to /r/pics under the title 'Brofist'[3]. By mid-2011 the joke also jumped to video. YouTuber Schnitzel Teller uploaded a Team Fortress 2 animation of two characters bumping fists on May 29, 2011, titled 'Brofist'[2]. In February 2012, YouTuber tosermate uploaded 'Epic Brofist,' a clip of a man punching a hole through his monitor while trying to bump fists with PewDiePie on screen. YouTuber PewDiePie brought the gesture to millions of viewers. On April 27, 2012, he uploaded a video attempting to fist bump strangers on the street, drawing over 2.41 million views in the year and a half that followed[2]. ## How to Use The ASCII copypasta is typically pasted as a standalone reply on a forum or dropped at the end of a supportive comment, treating the reader as a 'bro' being greeted. In photo and video form, people often stage a fist bump toward the camera or another subject, with the caption 'brofist' or 'bro fist' doing most of the joke work[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Bro Fist? Bro Fist is internet slang for the fist bump greeting, best known online as an ASCII copypasta of a clenched fist made from slashes and parentheses[4]. ### Where did Bro Fist come from? The ASCII drawing was first posted to 4chan on October 16, 2008, and reposted the next day by DeviantArt user Doyora with the copypasta included[3]. ### What does Bro Fist mean? It refers to greeting a friend by tapping knuckles in a closed-fist bump while treating them as a 'bro'[4]. ### How do you use Bro Fist? The ASCII art is typically pasted as a standalone reply on a forum, and the phrase itself is used before or after making the fist bump gesture with a friend[4]. ### Is Bro Fist still popular? The ASCII copypasta is a classic from the imageboard era, and the gesture stayed tied to YouTuber PewDiePie's channel, where he brought bro fist sign-offs to a mass audience[2]. ## References 1. [https://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/article_12a02ef7-b9d3-5cec-91f8-843d44412f13.html]() 2. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bHcs3ae05g]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bro-fist]() 4. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bro%20Fist]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/bro-fist Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library