In 2017, alt-right activists on alternative social media sites like 4Chan began a deliberate campaign to spread the use of the single-handed gesture. In theory, three fingers form a ‘W’ while the index finger and thumb form a ‘P’ - the acronym for White Power.

The gesture was chosen because of its resemblance to a popular gesture representing “okay”, in the hopes that people would eventually become polarized over whether or not the signal was necessarily racist. In 2019, The Anti-Defamation League officially recognized the gesture as a hate symbol, but emphasizes that “use of the okay symbol in most contexts is entirely innocuous and harmless.”