Are you ready to have your mind blown? Because the people of TikTok certainly weren’t.
The latest and greatest viral trend that’s sweeping the online nation has to do with human limitation. Specifically, our inability to touch the palm of our hand to our shoulder. And it’s a revelation that has the people of the internet feeling positively freaked out.
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It all seems to have begun earlier this month when TikTok user Lauren Murphy sharing a video demonstrating this phenomenon.
In that original video , Murphy brings up her left arm with her palm facing down and attempts to place it over top of her left shoulder, only to find that she can’t bend her elbow back far enough to achieve this.
Also, it’s worth noting that Murphy is using the same hand to touch the same shoulder here. Of course, you can slap your left palm to your right shoulder all the live-long-day, but that’s cheating.
Once Murphy’s video began gaining traction online, other people started attempting the move themselves and were stunned at their results.
I’m sure by now you’ve also attempted the exact same gesture, only to discover that you’re also unable to get your palm to touch your shoulder. It’s almost like you’re trying to force the same sides of two magnets together, and they just keep repelling away from each other.
Perhaps you can get your fingers to graze the top of your shoulder, and maybe you figure that’s good enough. But let me be the one to tell you that it’s not, and you still failed. Sorry.
Just like any other time we learn something new about our own bodies, people are in utter disbelief, and are perhaps even feeling a little betrayed.
After all, we love to say that we know something “like the back of our hand”, since we’re fairly certain we know everything there is to know about our skin suits .
But the second we learn this isn’t actually the case, we can’t help but feel deceived, can we?
However, there are a select few out there who have tested the trend for themselves and discovered they can actually touch their shoulder.
Some online users have expressed confusion at how such a simple act has turned into a viral phenomenon, since they have no issues getting their palm up onto their shoulder.
“That’s literally a lie,” one user wrote of the viral claim, while another person added, “Is this an actual thing people are saying on TikTok? I’m so confused because if you have an arm and a shoulder, it should be easy to do.”
But it should be noted that many people claiming they can achieve this movement are either simply touching their shoulder with their fingers, or going at it from a different angle.
While the majority of online users attempt to bend their arm from the side, some successful attempts have been made while bending from the front instead.
For research purposes, this writer attempted both ways and discovered that indeed, trying to touch your shoulder from the side is significantly harder than from the front. The elbow’s movement is much less restricted that way.
So perhaps everyone freaking out at not being able to do the trick should take a moment to compose themselves before attempting it again from the front.
If you tried this for yourself, what were your results? Are you able to do it or are you hopelessly flapping your palm less than an inch away from making touchdown on your shoulder? Let us know!
