Girl Gives A Victory Hand

• Japan and the V sign in photographs
The palm-outwards V sign is very commonly made by Japanese people, especially younger people, when posing for informal photographs. One account of this practice 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 competition, her cheerful diligence and indefatigability resonated with many Japanese viewers, making her an overnight foreign celebrity in Japan. Lynn, a peace activist, was repeatedly seen flashing the V sign in the Japanese media thereafter. Though the V sign was known of in Japan before Lynn used 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. According to another theory, the V sign was popularized by the actor and singer Jun Inoue, who showed it in a Konica camera commercial in 1972.