I need to reply to this post
Many times I have given and been a recipient of the bird. Personally, receiving the bird does not upset me. My friends and I do it to each other as a joke so I think I have been desensitized to it. But it is taken seriously when driving. I have received the bird many times when I was first learning how to drive. Going too slow or accidentally cutting someone off I would be gestured at with the bird. It made me feel a little embarrassed but I do not take it to heart. And now I sometimes do it to other people when they are driving dangerously.
I think that the meaning of gestures can change over time. It used to be very offensive to flip someone off, but now I think people are more okay with it. It is less shocking to be flipped off nowadays. With it happening so often I think people don’t care about the real meaning of it anymore. In Elementary school when we all learned what it was we would do it just to make each other laugh because we knew we were not supposed to be doing it. But we did not mean to offend each other. I think that if you are not doing it to offend someone and the recipient knows it as well, it is not super offensive anymore.
https://englishlive.ef.com/blog/english-in-the-real-world/hand-gestures/
