^ It on itself isn't, that is true. But, it's the joke comments we make that seemed so meme-y to me that calling it a meme is safe. Y'know, comments like " Hand holding is so lewd." or "WTF? Pixelize those hands!" and so on...
Agreed, although maybe jokes like "OK, they've fisted, but they're not really dating until they've interlocked fingers" are common elsewhere and I've just never happened to run across them.
Oh, it's not just us. In Reddit threads, they make jokes all the frigging time about the lewdness of hand holding. You can't upload a pic of two persons holding hands without getting replies complaining about the obscenity of your post.
According to some sources, it was "Dakara Boku wa, Ecchi ga Dekinai" ("So, I Can't Play H!") that started it. The anime came out in 2012 and one episode would have included this scene:
The indented witticism was something like: "Look peeps, our show is so pure we even use mosaic censorship (which usually covers instances of intercourse or fellatio in porn videos) to hide two hands touching!"
In Japan, the joke fell flat; but it was a huge succes among Western fans. Or so they claim.
*Edited to correct mistake about the name of the show, thx @luinthoron
last edited at Apr 12, 2019 1:28PM