Awkward turtle


Awkward turtle is a slang two-handed gesture used to silently mark a moment or situation as awkward. A number of spinoff hand gestures akin to the awkward turtle have since arisen. The gesture is likely used in most cases playfully and ironically. Some have remarked that giving the gesture is a sort of celebration of social discomfort.
The gesture is believed to have originally come from a sign language. It's the common gesture for "turtle" and "tortoise" in Auslan, and may also be in American Sign Language as the gesture for "sea turtle"—though people have disputed this, claiming it is actually the ASL sign for "platypus". The awkward turtle is gestured by placing one hand flat atop the other with both palms facing down, thumbs stuck out to the sides and rotating to look like flippers.
The term "awkward turtle" has transcended the gesture and is sometimes just stated, without the gesture.

Example usages

History

's "top definition" for awkward turtle was a definition post on 6 September 2005—that definition also appears to be the oldest one for "awkward turtle" on Urban Dictionary.
A student journalist reported on the ubiquitousness of the awkward turtle hand gesture at the University of Pennsylvania on 3 February 2006. By 2008, Facebook reportedly had more than 500 "awkward turtle" groups, the largest of which had more than 27,000 members.
"A Way with Words", a public radio program about language, did a segment on "awkward turtle" on 10 October 2009, citing it as slang from UCLA.
According to an Urban Dictionary five year snapshot of activity regarding "awkward turtle", activity peaked in early 2013, with February 2013 having the highest activity of all months in that span.