If you’re confused and wondering what the sign of the horns mean, we’ll tell you that you are very familiar with it. Well, it’s that hand gesture that you use at every damn concert or while clicking stupid drunk pictures. In other words, it’s that sign in which you extend your little and the index fingers while you use your thumb to hold the middle and the ring fingers. Now, the question is how this sign came into existence? And if you think it started with the rock n’ roll, metal culture, stop right there because you’re far from being correct. It got famous because of the metal culture, yes, I’ll give you that. But where did it come from?

Let’s start by saying, all the Indians, put your hands up and do the sign of the horns because the earliest signs of using this hand gesture started from India. And who used it? It was Gautama Buddha who used it very commonly as an apotropaic gesture to expel demons, removal of obstacles like negative thoughts or sickness.

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The sign was used the same way even in Italy and the Mediterranean cultures. Traditionally, it was also used to keep oneself safe from the ‘evil eye’ aka malocchio.

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It also has an offensive meaning in many of the Mediterranean and Latin countries like Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Portugal, Greece and more. If you direct it towards someone and swing it around back and forth, the sign implies cuckoldry or cuck which might mean having an unfaithful wife. (don’t know where to go with that)

And in today’s time, well, every other person uses the sign of the horns for one single reason; they think it’s cool. Well, it’s only cool if done at appropriate places and times. Other than that, you’re just a plain stupid human being. And again, the sign never represented EDM or any other genre of music but metal from which it got famous.

In an interview with Metal-Rules.com, the late heavy metal vocalist and songwriter, Ronnie James Dio was asked, “I want to ask you about something people have asked you about before but will no doubt continue to talk about, and that is the sign created by raising your index and little finger. Some call it the “evil eye.” I would like to know if you were the first one to introduce this to the metal world and what this symbol represents to you?”

And this is what he said, “I doubt very much if I would be the first one who ever did that. That’s like saying I invented the wheel, I’m sure someone did that at some other point. I think you’d have to say that I made it fashionable. I used it so much and all the time and it had become my trademark until the Britney Spears audience decided to do it as well. So it kind of lost its meaning with that. But it was…. I was in Sabbath at the time. It was a symbol that I thought was reflective of what that band was supposed to be all about. It’s NOT the devil’s sign like we’re here with the devil. It’s an Italian thing I got from my Grandmother called the “Malocchio”. It’s to ward off the Evil Eye or to give the Evil Eye, depending on which way you do it. It’s just a symbol but it had magical incantations and attitudes to it and I felt it worked very well with Sabbath. So I became very noted for it and then everybody else started to pick up on it and away it went. But I would never say I take credit for being the first to do it. I say because I did it so much that it became the symbol of rock and roll of some kind.”

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Remember this when you use the sign of the horns the next time and make sure you use it correctly.