# Is the "high five" really as new as Wikipedia says? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 30, 2018, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123 "2018-05-30T11:35:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/1 "2018-05-30T11:35:10Z")
I was born in 1982. My entire life, the act of stretching out your palm and slapping another person’s similarly outstretched palm has been something I’ve understood as a mutual show of respect or appreciation. You high-five someone because they’ve done a good job, or you’ve done a good job as a team, or something good has happened to the both of you and you want to celebrate it. To me, it seems ancient, one of those universal human gestures that has existed from Time Immemorial. When I see babies or toddlers at my work, I offer them a high-five, and they almost always accept it. [Wikipedia says it originated in the late '70s, and its antecedents are only a few years older.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_five) I know a great many of the posters here are older than myself. Is Wikipedia right here? Did any of you encounter the gesture in earlier ages? Did the high-five exist in decades before anyone thought to document it, or is the gesture really actually younger than Star Trek? ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/2 "2018-05-30T11:49:05Z")
The thing to remember is that a high-five requires a certain amount of anticipation, either because you know it is coming and want to participate, or because someone calls it out. I was born in 1963, and I definitely remember being old enough to think of a called-out high-five as a new thing, and also trying to figure out when to anticipate or precipitate one. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/3 "2018-05-30T11:58:20Z")
The early '80s is when I first encountered it, and that was in media from the US. I think I may have seen it in sports events before seeing it in movies; Dad liked basketball. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/4 "2018-05-30T12:15:21Z")
Remember _Hoosiers_, the Gene Hackman movie about a small-town high school basketball team that improbably wins the state championship? It was filmed here in Indiana, using a lot of local people as extras for the crowd scenes. One story that’s been told many times around here is that various extras kept high-fiving each other, and the director had to repeatedly stop filming and yell at them to quit doing that, because it’s supposed to be the 1950s, and people didn’t high-five then. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/5 "2018-05-30T12:27:30Z")
I don’t remember high five during my childhood in late sixties and 70’s. It was common in college. I never used it much unless someone called high five. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/6 "2018-05-30T12:32:10Z")
It started being common in the 80s. In the 70s there was “gimmee five!” and “down low!” Plus the classic of saying “gimmee five” with both palms outstretched and when the other person slapped both hands you smacked him across the face and said “here’s your change.” ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/7 "2018-05-30T12:32:35Z")
Did the high five grow out of the gimme five or was that just concidence? (failed to include joke tags) ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/8 "2018-05-30T12:37:26Z")
It grew out of gimme five. By the 70s giving five was everywhere, I remember doing it in kindergarten. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/9 "2018-05-30T12:41:35Z")
High five in '75 for upper class white kids in my town in Canada, so it had to have been popular well prior to that. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/10 "2018-05-30T12:53:09Z")
I never saw it when I was growing up in the 60s. Gimme Five existed, though. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/11 "2018-05-30T13:32:22Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > High five in '75 for upper class white kids in my town in Canada, so it had to have been popular well prior to that. You had [high-five’n white guys](https://youtu.be/EQXqEAYHudQ) in Canada, too? And yes, that is exactly who you think it is. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/12 "2018-05-30T15:02:37Z")
Grade school in late 60s, urban area, northeastern US, school about 50/50 white/black. “Slap me five” or “Gimme five”, with hand held out horizontally palm pacing up. The other person would slap your hand, then flip their hand so it was palm up and you would slap back. The “high five”, simultaneously slapping palms held vertically came much later. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/13 "2018-05-30T15:43:37Z")
It says it originated in baseball. While I doubt these guys were the _very_ first, I can easily see it being a natural evolution of the half-hearted walk-by “good game” hand slap you have to give the opposing team at the end of a game. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/14 "2018-05-30T16:28:17Z")
I think it was the University of Houston that really popularized it in the early 80’s. (Phi Slamma Jamma) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/15 "2018-05-30T16:36:25Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > It started being common in the 80s. In the 70s there was “gimmee five!” and “down low!” Plus the classic of saying “gimmee five” with both palms outstretched and when the other person slapped both hands you smacked him across the face and said “here’s your change.” > [@madmonk28](#): > > It grew out of gimme five. By the 70s giving five was everywhere, I remember doing it in kindergarten. This looks tight to me. I remember “gimme five!” in the mid-70s. I feel like we learned it from “Welcome Back, Kotter” it “Good Times.” I remember seeing the “gimme five! Up high! Down low! Too slow!” As something new. It was well after that that the high five split off and became something by itself. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/16 "2018-05-30T16:50:54Z")
I remember that we had taught our dog to present his paw to “gimme five” instead of “shake” and thought it was the height of hilarity. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/17 "2018-05-30T17:07:07Z")
In my white, suburban, middle-class 1960’s teenage experience, the gimme five/slap my hand gesture came first, which evolved into the sideways handslap (looks like you’re extending your arm in a traditional handshake, but slap the outstretched palm right and left), which at some point evolved into the raised arm high five. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/18 "2018-05-30T17:18:58Z")
When I was in college in the early 1970s we used to do “gimme five.” And as a joke, we used to do variants, like “gimme five high,” and “gimme five low,” and “gimme ten” with both hands. (Also, “gimme five the hard way” with four fingers on one hand and one on the other.) But “gimmie five high” was with your hand flat at shoulder level, not raised high as in a high-five. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/19 "2018-05-30T17:21:57Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I was born in 1982. My entire life, the act of stretching out your palm and slapping another person’s similarly outstretched palm has been something I’ve understood as a mutual show of respect or appreciation. You high-five someone because they’ve done a good job, or you’ve done a good job as a team, or something good has happened to the both of you and you want to celebrate it. To me, it seems ancient, one of those universal human gestures that has existed from Time Immemorial. I was born in the same time period and I also was shocked when I learned it a few years ago. It is as if no one had invited clapping until 1970 and you never knew differently. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123/20 "2018-05-30T17:26:29Z")
And it was novel enough back then that Roseanne did a comedy routine about it whatever years she was doing standup: “And what is with this high five thing? Women don’t do things like that. I can just see myself finding a good blouse on the bargain table… Wow! Jennifer, slap my palm!” Dennis [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-high-five-really-as-new-as-wikipedia-says/815123.md?page=2)