Finger pinching conspiracy theory

The finger pinching conspiracy theory is an antifeminist conspiracy theory that originated in South Korea. It claims that there is a deliberate plot to spread and promote misandry through symbolic hand gestures, and that radical feminist groups have propagated these hidden messages to humiliate men with small penises.
The theory first gained prominence in May 2021 when convenience store chain GS25 faced accusations of allegedly shoehorning a hand signal that disparaged penises in an advertisement, causing the company to retract it and issue an apology. Since then, numerous organizations were met with protests from theorists and announced similar apologies.
The conspiracy theory is regarded as a hoax due to contradictory claims and a general lack of evidence. Despite having failed to prove such a plot exists, the theory persists; notably in the video game industry, where Nexon led a public allegation against its collaborators. It is viewed as an antifeminist backlash movement in South Korea, and has been analyzed as a symptom of gender inequality in the country.
According to authors who consider it false, the finger pinching conspiracy theory is based on a belief among South Korean men that feminists are planning covertly to worsen their lives or harm them. Proponents of the conspiracy theory claim that users of Megalia, a defunct radical feminist movement website, were successful in infiltrating various organizations. The theory argues its remnants started to plant a specific hand gesture (commonly referred to as the "finger pinching" gesture), with an index finger and thumb facing each other, which connotes small penis humiliation by implicitly signaling Korean men's penises are small. It is also reminiscent of Megalia's logo.
The place where the finger pinching is spotted as well as the extent to which they can be considered offensive varies between cases. Incidents reported on The New York Times essay included theorists associating the finger-pinching symbolism with depiction of hands pointing at mundane items, such as a credit card, a can of Starbucks espresso, or a COVID-19 vaccine. One anonymous theorist, having found the finger pinching in gender sensitivity educational materials for the Korean army, argued they could differentiate the problematic finger pinching gesture from ordinary hand gesture, because they thought the former contained explicit intentions.
South Korea in the 2020s has been described as having gender inequality in a number of aspects. As of 2021, the gender pay gap was at 35 percent, the widest among advanced economies, and 65 percent of public companies on the Korea Exchange had no female executives. Gender-based violence in South Korea is described by Human Rights Watch as "shockingly widespread". In 2021, a woman was murdered or targeted for murder every 1.4 days or less.
The social inequality is exacerbated by severe gender conflicts in the country. There have been organized social movements by women, referred to by The New York Times as "Asia's most successful MeToo movement". Since the late-2010s, there has reportedly been an increase in the number of antifeminist young men who view feminism as a supremacy movement that oppresses men. Reasons given for this belief include that women are not subjected to compulsory military service, intense job competition, the lack of political representation, refusal to take responsibility for the toxic masculinity of older generations, and being unfairly stereotyped as potential criminals. A 2021 survey claimed that 79% of South Korean men in their 20s believe they are victims of reverse discrimination. Antifeminists reportedly adopted terms like "femi" or "man haters" to discredit feminists.
In 2015, a radical feminist website named Megalia was founded. The website focused on antagonizing men. It became infamous for its logo that depicted an obscene hand gesture, with an index finger and thumb in a pinching motion; this was intended to mock alleged small penises. Megalia was shut down in 2017, although criticism of the group and its symbolism has reportedly persisted.
On May 1, 2021, GS25's local retail firm GS Retail sent a digital notice letter to its customers via mobile messaging app KakaoTalk, announcing future promotional events in that month. The message contained a poster for camping-related items, which had a pictogram of hands grabbing a sausage. That same day, a rumor emerged that the picture was an intentional reference to the Megalia logo. The rumor reportedly spread quickly; it was first posted on a website called Ppomppu [ko] at 10:15 and reached other communities within an hour. GS25 responded to the incident before 13:00.
GS25 reacted by issuing apology letters and altering the poster twice that day. Each alteration was reportedly met with more allegations of radical feminist symbolism. A crescent was accused of being the logo of a feminist club in Seoul National University, and its tagline was suspected to have an acronym of Megalia's name. Other inanimate objects accused of having feminist symbolism included a tent, constellations, and a laurel leaf. After going through multiple revisions, GS25 removed the poster altogether and issued another apology on social media on May 2.
Protests continued after GS25's announcement. On May 2, a petition on National Petition to the Blue House was launched to remove the GS25 business chain from the Korea Armed Forces; it received 42 thousand signatures in a day. Support for a boycott spread, with an image that referenced a 2019 boycott of Japanese products. One GS25-affiliated store owner put up a signboard that supported "equality of outcome and opportunity" and denounced feminism.
The integrity behind the online backlash was questioned by GS25 officials and third parties. Food industry retailers interviewed by The Hankyoreh described the accusation as "esoteric" and showed concerns that such incidents would demoralize their business. A person claiming to be the graphic designer of the GS25 poster contested the controversy on the anonymous worker community Blind on May 9, 2021. In a now-deleted statement, she said she "doesn't support any ideology" and her design didn't contain an expression of hate for men. Nevertheless, GS25 announced on May 31 that the graphic designer would be disciplined, and the GS Retail president was demoted. The GS25 incident is commonly referred to as the first publicized case of controversies surrounding the finger pinching.
On November 25, 2023, finger pinching theorists suggested there was a vulgar display of misandry in Nexon's video game MapleStory, as its recently published trailer, promoting the new class Angelic Buster, featured a character that allegedly performed the finger pinching for 0.1 seconds. Theorists searched for similar gestures in other Nexon trailers, including Dungeon Fighter Online and Blue Archive. Theorists scrutinized the animation production studio that produced Nexon's trailers, Ppuri.
Nexon reportedly contacted Ppuri on November 26 and suggested it issue an apology. Accordingly, Ppuri posted its first apology letter at 16:12. Three hours later at 19:00, MapleStory director Kim Chang-seop announced that Nexon would remove all visual works created by Ppuri and condemned the animation studio in a YouTube livestream. Kim said that he was against people who implicitly express hatred, and promised Nexon would pursue legal action. Dungeon Fighter Online director Lee Wonman and Blue Archive director Kim Yongha expressed similar sentiments on the matter. Ppuri's works for those games were removed as well.
Nexon's response was followed by a major backlash from finger pinching theorists against Ppuri. A female Ppuri animator was doxed; her social media posts were analyzed and alleged to be confirmation of planting misandrist symbolism. The animator also received death and rape threats. Ppuri president Jang Seonyeong issued a second apology letter on November 27 in which she promised to fire the animator; Ppuri later claimed this was due to pressure from the theorists and their business relationship with Nexon (which composed 80 percent of their work at the time). This second public apology was taken down on the same day. Ppuri later overturned the decision of removing the employee from her position. Jang Seonyeong and Ppuri director Kim Sangjin explained that it was unjust to admit to a misdeed the studio has never done, and the director wanted to protect its animators from online harassment.
Nexon's public reprimand of Ppuri was positively received by its associated developers. Nexon union leader Bae Suchan likened the fingers to the English racial slur nigger, saying an expression must be redacted if it can be read as hate speech. When its umbrella organization, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), joined the press conference in front of Nexon's headquarters to condemn Nexon's action, Bae Suchan said they would consider leaving the KCTU because it focused more on political activities than efforts to protect the rights of its members. Supercat, the developer behind mobile game The Kingdom of the Winds published by Nexon, started in-house training that taught its workers not to express feminism in the game and included Ppuri animator's tweet as an example. On Blind, anonymous Nexon employee criticized Ppuri for putting the burden to fix the game on Nexon developers.
Later investigations performed by news media and Ppuri's interviews in December 2023 found that the allegations led by Nexon and the finger pinching theorists were erroneous. Worksheets provided by Ppuri revealed that the "feminist hand gesture" scene in the Angelic Buster trailer was not drawn by a female employee, but a male animator in his forties. Other vetted rumors include: that Ppuri has voided its offices and ghosted its clients (it never did, although a number of employees were temporarily relocated to other places in light of threatening phone calls and several unidentified people visiting and taking photos of the main office); that Ppuri interposed additional key poses between the original works and failed to notify Nexon (all works were closely supervised and approved by Nexon, including the alleged hand gesture scene); and that Ppuri has performed similar practice on a promotional video of Street Fighter 6 (the company did not work on said animatics).
Nexon has eluded subsequent contacts from Ppuri afterwards. The company faced additional complaints from Nexon players after the scandal, who insisted there're more pinch fingers in MapleStory. Each was resolved with Nexon removing the finger pinching.
Since the scandal, Ppuri sought to pursue legal actions against internet trolls who harassed its employees. Ppuri's press conference in December 2023 mentioned it had collected over thousands of internet posts of cyberbullying against the company and its animators; 308 posts were eventually chosen to press criminal charge through the Seocho District police between May and June 2024. The police initially dismissed Ppuri's charges in July 2024, on the basis that it's logical for defendants to criticize Ppuri animators for allying with feminists. It re-opened the case two days later, after its decision was met with public condemnation and a request for reinvestigation from the Prosecutors' Office. The police finished the re-investigation in February 2025 against the 86 specified defendants, some of which were informed for multiple offenses, including defamation and cyberstalking.
The finger pinching conspiracy theory is widely agreed to be a hoax. No robust evidence suggests that radical feminist groups are planting the gesture to promote misandry. Some argue that the structure of the human hand results in the gesture being unintentionally formed many times a day. Some analysts have argued that isolating single frames from animation is meaningless, as animations exist in motion.
South Korean organizations that appeased the theorists were criticized and described as enabling their behavior. Several authors argued that such appeasement reinforced the confirmatory bias of the theorists, and infringed on people's rights to labor and expression. Others held media outlets responsible for spreading the conspiracy theory. Noh Jimin, of Media Today, criticized news outlets that she felt did not critically analyze the truthfulness of the GS25 and MapleStory incidents. Kim Sooah from Seoul University noted that Korean news media unconditionally published articles based on rumors about Megalia in male-focused internet communites. Kim claimed that these news articles created an illusion that there is a conspiracy to surreptitiously encourage misandry in South Korean society, and pressured organizations into avoiding being labelled misandrist regardless of whether such accusations were true.
The finger pinching theory was debated by news media as a medium of justifying harassment against women. The Korea Herald's Yim Hyunsu cited Jammi, a livestreamer accused of being a radical feminist in 2019 after she used a pinching hand sign, as an example of growing anti-feminist expectations placed on female celebrities. Jammi later committed suicide in January 2022 after online accusations of her being misandrist, with news coverage mentioning the finger pinching incident. Seoul Shinmun regarded the finger pinching theory as a tool of "hatred framing", taking certain keywords out of context and misrepresenting them to incriminate the speaker.
Some presses argued the conspiracy theory has had a negative effect on creative works. The Chosun Ilbo reported that the finger pinching controversies, with the other internet disputes, have costed extra resources for companies to alter their commercial advertisements and avoid potential complaints. Webtoon, an American-Korean webcomic platform owned by Naver, became a subject of constant disputes for the company's policies over the fingers. Webtoon comics like Return of the Blossoming Blade and Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint were criticized for censoring the alleged depiction of finger pinching hand gestures, with opponents of the conspiracy theory describing Naver's actions as inconsistent censorship and misogynic.
Critics of the finger pinching theory have focused on the impact of online communities, addressing their role in spreading rumors and encouraging online harassment against victims. Numerous authors have argued that a considerable number of theorists are exposed to male-dominated internet forums and social media. A 2021 The Hankyoreh report found that the accusations against GS25 in May 2021 came from and were subsequently spread by male-focused websites, including DC Inside, MLBpark, FMkorea, and Ruliweb. Based on its research, The Hankyoreh suggested these websites were pivotal to the backlash pattern. Other websites that some argued influenced the theorists include Namuwiki and Arcalive. SisaIN interviewed Ppuri animator regarding the 2023 MapleStory scandal and discussed how misinformation is spread through male-centric communities. Users of Namuwiki, a wiki website, compiled alleged incidents on a "misandry controversy" article; the article falsely concluded that the Ppuri incident was a conspiracy. Writing for Hankook Ilbo, Lee Hyemi argued these online communities misled their users by exaggerating the presence of now-defunct Megalia even though it was short-lived and, at its prime, didn't have nearly as many members as other active websites like Ilbe Storehouse and FMkorea.
Some commentators compared the theorists to supporters of other conspiracy theories. Semyung University professor Sim Seoktae compared the theorists to flat Earthers. Hankook Ilbo journalist In Hyeonu compared the theorists to Gamergate, which involved similar cherrypicking of information and harassment. In also compared the movement to Trumpism because of perceived neotribalism. He reported that Seoul National University professor Kim Sua suggested a counter-information campaign and to pass an anti-discrimination law. Several authors compared the finger pinching theorists to incels.
Several news media analyzed the finger pinching conspiracy theory as an online antifeminist movement in South Korea. Writers for Kyunghyang Shinmun claimed that the finger pinching theory is not an isolated incident, but a part of the ongoing antifeminist backlash movement on the South Korean internet since at least 2009. Several writers for The Hankyoreh listed nine other similar antifeminist backlashes that occurred in 2021. BBC compared the conspiracy theory to other antifeminist incidents in the country, such as when a woman was physically assaulted by a man in November 2023 because he thought she was a feminist for having short hair.
The conspiracy theory was noted for being a subject of doxing and cyberbullying. JoongAng Ilbo reported that this kind of "online lynch" must be regulated with law and punishment.
Several politicians have shown either support or objection for the conspiracy theory, sometimes conflicting within the same party. In 2021, Lee Jun-seok, an antifeminist figure and future party leader of the New Reform Party, first expressed support for the theory after the GS25 incident. In 2023, he affirmed his support for the theorists after the MapleStory scandal. Ryu Ho-jeong, a self-proclaimed feminist and also future founding member of the New Reform Party, also supported the theory and criticized Ppuri. Formerly a game developer at Smilegate, Ryu argued that Ppuri had hurt other developers in the video game industry.
Other politician supporters included People Power Party member Her Eun-a and former Democratic Party member Lee Sang-heon, who both supported Nexon during the MapleStory scandal. Heo Eun-a told an interviewer that Ppuri committed antisocial behavior and instigated gender conflicts, which she believed must be penalized. When Lee Sang-heon was later informed by Kyunghyang Shinmun that Nexon's allegations had errors, he stood by his opinion and said that "the point is not a gender issue, but that there's a certain alignment buyers find uncomfortable". Politicians who rejected the theory included Jang Hye-young, a Justice Party member. Jang criticized Lee Jun-seok and expressed sympathy to the people the theorists impacted.
In regard to the politicians' support, several argued that the theory's staying power originates from South Korean society's attempt at appeasing idaenam (a term referring to, sometimes derisively, South Korean men in their twenties). Kyunghyang Shinmun argued that the 2021 South Korean by-elections for the mayor of Seoul, where 72.5% of the male twenties supported Oh Se-hoon from the People Power Party in contrast to 22.2% for Park Young-sun from the Democratic Party, were a wake-up call for both parties, motivating politicians to shift their focus to courting idaenam. Some authors proposed that politicians stop using the gender conflict as a means to win over a certain group's votes; one expert also suggested that the government act first as a role model.
The country's video game industry was often central to the discussion of the controversies by many authors, some of which grounded their arguments on insider testimonies, who have suspected video game companies of being involved in removing people who support feminism. Several publications claimed the finger pinching controversies are an extension of the industry-wide feminist discharge that started back in 2016. Pressian's Park Sanghyeok claimed that the industry's irresistance to the conspiracy theory stemmed from its skewed population over male demographics; according to Game Industry White Paper published by Korea Creative Content Agency, in 2022, only 19.1% of video game industry workers in South Korea were female.
The Counter-antifeminism Emergency Response Committee, founded in March 2024 as a collaborated effort to respond to antifeminism in the video game industry, claimed that they received 77 reports of shunning feminists and women within the industry from August to December 2023, of which 17 cases were workplace bullying, 9 were cyberbullying, and 7 were unfair dismissal. The organization cited numerous incidents where workers were unjustly treated or felt threatened, including: a staff who was fired after having arguments with a male worker who complained about women problems, with an executive explaining their actions were unforgivable; an interviewee who received questions from a company about Ppuri, merely days after the MapleStory scandal; and testimonies that claimed they were seen as feminists because they had short hair or didn't wear makeup for meetings.
Nexon received significant criticism for allegedly prioritizing appeasing the theorists. Insiders contacted by Segye Ilbo claimed that, when the company replaced a voice actor in July 2016 in reaction to players accusing her of radical feminism, Nexon's internal meetings concluded the action was successful in enlarging its playerbase. Segye Ilbo argued this foreshadowed Nexon's actions in the MapleStory scandal. An insider report from Kyunghyang Shinmun stated that Nexon ran a web scraping software biased toward male-dominated forums, as well as a program that rewarded community posts to form public opinion to its liking, though Nexon has denied this allegation. Kyunghyang Shinmun's Yu Seonhui cited a separate fiasco involving officially sanctioned Dungeon & Fighter convention, which predated the MapleStory scandal by a couple weeks and was seen by Yu as a precedent of the Nexon developers promoting misogyny. Prior to the event, Nexon requested its participants to submit their social media account ID, a rule that didn't exist until that year. When questioned, Nexon emphasized "user's right to know." Yu argued that Nexon's policy change coincided with the feminist blacklisting movement from finger pinching theorists, who demanded all participants' Twitter history be searched, and that Nexon made a deliberate move to enable harassment against female players. Yu also cited another incident during that time, where Nexon delisted Dungeon & Fighter YouTube promotion of a singer who supported feminism.
Korean WomenLink, a women's rights organization, performed a protest in front of Nexon headquarters as an act against the MapleStory scandal. It also sent the company a written opinion compiled from approximately ten thousand people. WomenLink was later fined ₩1,000,000 by Suwon District Court via summary order in November 2024, citing that its assembly was not reported to relevant authority beforehand. The organization appealed against the order and demanded for formal trial.