Gene Simmons reckons he invented rock horns and is trying to trademark it

If you truly want to communicate that you are truly rocking out, there’s only one thing to do: reach for the horns of rock.

Everyone knows how to do it: middle fingers down and keep your index and little fingers in the air like you just don’t ruddy care, preferably while screaming “raawwwwk” at the top of your lungs. It’s even got its own emoji. You can’t argue with an emoji. Literally, you can’t, just try it, it’s a total waste of time because it’s a collection of pixels on a screen.

And, up to this point, it was considered – at least by us – a universal gesture that’s kind of been around forever.

However, now Kiss frontman Gene Simmons has decided that, actually, he invented it. And he wants to trademark it, for “entertainment, namely, live performances by a musical artist; personal appearances by a musical artist”.

This is the drawing of the hand gesture included in the application:

He’s claiming the ‘thumb out’ variant was first used in commerce on 14 November, 1974, while playing a live show.

However, the eagle-eyed folk at Consequence of Sound have already spotted that an illustrated version of John Lennon was sporting the horns on the cover of Yellow Submarine back in 1969.

For what it’s worth, we searched through Rex Features Picture Library and the first pic we can spot with Simmons doing it comes in 2005, so we’re pretty sure it’s a load of nonsense and the case will be dismissed.

A final ‘did you know’ from Consequence of Sound – the gesture means ‘I Love You’ in American Sign Language, so we should all be using it more to each other shouldn’t we? Rock out, and love each other guys.

(Images: Rex)