If you put "emoji" after the image URL it will make it emoji sized.

?!??!?!?! I've gotta try this.

Well I'll be damned. They should put that in the sidebar of this comm.

My honest opinion is that most of the cultures where the thumbs up has a history as an offensive gesture have enough Facebook and YouTube users and enough exposure to Hollywood that they understand you aren't telling them to go fuck themselves.

But if you really do need a new gesture... I dunno, the thumbs up is polysemous so there's no real one size fits all replacement. But at least in some senses you may be able to replace it with something like the international fingerspelling of O-K.

In slop "never do these hand gestures in these countries!!" articles, the names that come up most often are Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria (or West Africa more broadly), LatAm, Russia, Italy (specifically the south and Sardinia), Greece, and Australia (?? I wonder if they're referring to Aboriginal cultures or something, or maybe they actually meant Austria)

I frankly find it hard to believe in any case. Some netizens from some of these regions when asked about the supposedly offensive nature of the gesture say that they have never heard of it meaning anything other than like/good/OK; and in other regions, even if the thumbs up was offensive in the past, that meaning has largely faded away in recent decades due to internationalization. I get the impression that Iran is where "thumbs up means sit on my dick" is most prevalent today, but this is just an impression.

Edit: Tangentially relevant: in Japanese Sign Language, flipping the bird means BROTHER, and a thumbs up is how you fingerspell the syllable "ta". Most of the "a" syllables in JSL fingerspelling came from the ASL manual alphabet, but ASL T looked like an obscene gesture (fig gesture) to the Japanese, so evidently they replaced it with an obscene gesture to Iranians.

Stalin (studied Esperanto in prison)

Khomeini (promoted Esperanto through a state-published Quran translation)

Kim Jong-il (also here)

How did you draw the woman the wrong way?

Micronationalism seems like it could be a fun hobby, but it also seems to attract some number of unsavory types, doesn't it.

What really sets me off is that 20 people apparently agreed with the sentiment that these people should be laughed at. Are people on this site really so unempathetic, or do these 20 people just never think about anything?

Jerk. Your superiority complex will be your downfall.

You live in a timeline where decades of effort to destroy online privacy has left tons of very well-meaning people with absolutely terrible opsec. These people not knowing opsec doesn't make them inferior to you nor deserving of whatever misfortune happens to them. If you take the rather unempathetic stance that these doxxing victims should be laughed at for having "bad opsec", then you really just come across as a nihilist with leftist aesthetics who's here to passively watch the world burn while acting smug about not using Twitter.

Black and white cow spot pajamas

"Operation Epic Fury? I thought they already used that name?"

"No, you're thinking of Operation Urgent Fury, back in 1983."

"…This is some 'Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer, Seafood Dinner' bullshit."

In fact you pinged me while I was already in the middle of typing my comment!

Seconding Slime 300 and Demon Girl. I have not seen Silent Witch or BOFURI but every time I see the title of the latter I think "BOFURI'S NUTS! GOTTEM!"

Most of these are 12 or 13 episodes long.

My top recommendation is gonna be BARAKAMON (2014) simply for the fact that it's the only one I can recommend where the main character is a grown ass man instead of a girl child. 23-year-old Seishuu Handa is a master calligrapher who punches a calligraphy judge for speaking ill of his work; following this incident, Handa ends up exiled on a small rural island to reflect on his actions and art. During his stay on this rural island Handa meets various odd locals, most notably an energetic little girl called Naru.

Other recommendations

Other recommendations:

IN THE HEART OF KUNOICHI TSUBAKI (2022) — this one's about a hidden no-boys-allowed village where little girls train to be ninjas/kunoichi, but the main character has become curious about what the heck these "men" things are, anyways. I thought it had an interesting setting, on top of having good bits and being short and sweet.
MS KOIZUMI LOVES RAMEN NOODLES (2018) — I've rewatched this one three times and loved it every time (incidentally, I was also the one who recommended it to grebgreb, who I spent the third rewatch with). Basically, Yuu is MEGA gay for her classmate Koizumi, who seems to have a one-track mind dedicated exclusively to the consumption of every type of ramen on Earth. And so Yuu basically spends the series following Koizumi into various ramen shops trying to get into her crush's special interest.
STARDUST TELEPATH (2023) — apropos autism-coded characters, this is a very fun yuri coded one. I was actually disappointed by the fact that it WAS short, since it could've used extra time to build up some of the plot beats and have a more satisfying finale. Nevertheless, I did still very much enjoy Stardust Telepath. It's about a girl with social anxiety who feels like an "alien on the wrong planet", and she ends up meeting an extremely energetic extrovert girl who claims to be a literal space alien, complete with her own "alien language" and "alien powers" and all that. The two of them, together with two other girls, end up starting a bottle rocket club with the aim of one day building a rocket that can send the alien back to space.
HITORIBOCCHI NO MARUMARUSEIKATSU (2019) — and apropos characters with social anxiety. Hitori Bocchi has extreme social anxiety, and her only friend is refusing to talk to her until she befriends her whole class. She doesn't quite reach that goal, but does make some very kind friends.
I'M IN LOVE WITH THE VILLAINESS (2023) — an isekai yuri romance in which an office worker wakes up as Rae Taylor, the protagonist of her favorite otome game, which takes place at a magic school. As the title would suggest, commoner Rae Taylor is madly in love with the "villainess" character in the game, the proud noble Claire François.
KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF EIZOUKEN (2020) — this is one of the more "chicks rock" ones. It's about three teen girls who start a school club to realize their shared dream of making an independent anime movie. It's very beautifully animated with characters of varying body types and skin colors, and it's informative about the animation process.
STRAWBERRY MARSHMALLOW (2005) — 20-year-old smoker Nobue takes her 12-year-old sister Chika and her friends (Miu, Matsuri, and Ana Coppola) on various outings. Very much a show defined by the characters' personalities and dynamics, especially Miu who's a real rascal/scamp who steals the spotlight every time. Ana Coppola is also the token "Anglo who's forgotten English" and there's some bits based on this. You might also notice that this one's significantly older than all the other ones I'm recommending. This one also has 5 OVA episodes for a grand total of 17 episodes.
MITSUBOSHI COLORS (2018) — I think this one has similar vibes to the previous one, in terms of being about preteen girls goofing off. This time it's three girls who call themselves the Colors, and there isn't really an adult supervising them, unless you count the local policeman who serves as their "enemy". The Colors basically go around Ueno to "protect the city from peril", "solving mysteries and battling enemies" and all that, which is to say that they really just play and make poop jokes. Notably, Mitsuboshi Colors has the same original creator as Hitoribocchi no Marumaruseikatsu, and I'd say if you liked the one you'll probably like the other.
DO IT YOURSELF (2022) — this one has sort of similar vibes to Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, except it's more chill, and instead of making a movie the girls are building furniture and treehouses and trinkets and stuff. I watched this one with my mom, who remarked on how the show also depicts old people being active and helping the girls in a very positive way.
DIARY OF OUR DAYS AT THE BREAKWATER (2020) — I recommended this one to @AernaLingus@hexbear.net and she really enjoyed it. A shy girl who's just moved to a new town makes friends through an after school fishing club. It is of course problematic from an animal rights standpoint for the show to concern recreational fishing… But hey, better to watch fictional fish get hurt and killed than to go out and hurt real fish, right?

Answers for Akrotiri u Dekeliya and Aksá

They were solved by others as

Akrotiri and Dhekelia, a British overseas territory which was carved out of Cyprus by the London and Zürich Agreements that gave the rest of the island independence. The Brits just really didn't want to give up their Middle Eastern military bases. I wonder why!
Al-Quds / Jerusalem. Al-Aqsa is a compound of Islamic religious buildings atop the Temple Mount and is one of the holiest sites in Islam. The compound features very prominently in songs, names, communiques and iconography of the Palestinian resistance and of anti-Zionism more broadly.

This is an evergreen classic, I listen to it all the time.

Response

Aksá is indeed the Manjatian name of Al-Quds / Jerusalem and does indeed come from the name of al-Aqsa, the compound of Islamic religious buildings atop the Temple Mount. I'd also considered calling the city Alkuc-As̋arífe as a simple transliteration of the Arabic name al-Quds ash-Shareef. I suppose both these names could be in free variation.

Aĺamane has zero etymological relation to the Alemanni. The letter Ĺ in this name comes from a regular assimilation of /lj/.

Response

Close enough, so I'll just reveal the actual answer now.

To generalize, the name Turtle Island is associated with the seven continent model and is used more by English-speaking Indigenous activists, while Abya Yala is associated with the six continent model and is used more by Spanish-speaking Indigenous activists. Put simply, Turtle Island replaces "North America" and Abya Yala replaces "América" ("the Americas").

The name Abya Yala is from the Kuna language of Panama and means something to the effect of "mature land".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abya_Yala

I did coin a Manjatian calque of Turtle Island as well, that being Bómbyadá; but since I'm using the six continent model here, Turtle Island is seen as more of a region than a continent.