#RepeatedMinuteAcademicGesturing is not a popular hashtag. I checked on Twitter and there are no results. And when there aren’t hashtags for something, it is hard to say that it really exists. If a tree falls and no one is there to Vine their reaction…

But how do you hashtag the wind? Or a gesture, the small movements of a teacher’s hands? It seemed impossible to digitally catalogue such a thing. That was until criticalhandgestures came along. Here, presented for the first time, is the internet’s only collection of gesticulation gifs. Artists Jasmine Johnson, Alice May Williams, and More Utopia have created a small but growing number of scholarly hand-gesture gifs that convey (over and over) the messages of: “I’m testing out my research in front of a live audience”, “I’m making a very fine distinction”, and “I’ve read too much Marx and I can’t get my words out”, among others. Each image is accompanied with a description of the gesture’s meaning, along with instructions on how to move your hands to convey the appropriate message. CriticalHandGestures is a fine contribution to the internet/human catalogue… *spreads out both arms with open palms, indicating item of vast importance* Check out their site here.