Reply #1605 sirtiger's post
It's the old peace sign and I always thought it might be due to Lennon / Beatles influence.
A bit of wikisearch comes up with other possibilities.
One account of the V sign's use in portrait photographs claims that during the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Hokkaidō, American figure skater Janet Lynn stumbled into Japanese pop culture when she fell during a free-skate period, but continued to smile even as she sat on the ice. Though she placed only third in the actual competition, her cheerful diligence and indefatigability resonated with many Japanese viewers, making her an overnight celebrity in Japan. Afterward, Lynn (a peace activist) was repeatedly seen flashing the V sign in the Japanese media. Though the V sign was known of in Japan prior to Lynn's use of it there (from the post-World War II Allied occupation of Japan), she is credited by some Japanese for having popularized its use in amateur photographs.[31] According to another theory, the V sign was popularized by the actor and singer Jun Inoue, who showed it in a Konica photo camera commercial in 1972.[citation needed] | |
