Vin Diesel Traded a Handshake for an Elbow Bump on Kimmel Last Night
Vin Diesel appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night, and greeted the show's host with an elbow bump rather than a handshake.
He ended up ducking a question about how he's keeping clean and healthy with the rise of COVID-19, but his action speaks louder than words.
His endorsement of an elbow bump as a greeting was also suggested—with a bit more insight and explanation—by a doctor on a BBC talk show.
Vin Diesel's most famous on-screen character, Dom Toretto from the Fast and Furious series, is well-known to have a drink of choice—a Corona beer. With the news around the rapidly-evolving COVID-19 situation, though, he appears to be leading by example when dealing with the similarly-named (but not at all related) coronavirus. On a Monday night appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Diesel entered and greeted the host not with a handshake, but with an elbow bump.
"If they see you do it, it may catch on," the host told the movie star as soon as he sat down for their conversation. Kimmel goes on to ask Diesel about what he's doing to stay clean and healthy and avoid the sickness—and he actually totally ducks the question, instead echoing Kimmel's sentiment and saying "I belong to you guys!" before telling a story about filming a F9 fight scene. But his actions—bumping elbows rather than shaking hands—speak louder than his (lack of) words.
Kimmel has a good point in Diesel's leading by example. Someone can give good health advice all the want, but it's when people see someone they think of as larger than life—someone like Vin Diesel—they'll tend to follow by example, even if that person doesn't necessarily have much to orate about the subject.
Diesel's greeting audible is far from an isolated one. In fact, Dr Xand van Tulleken advocated for a number of behavior changes in an appearance on BBC Question Time, not shaking hands being one of them. "Not because it may in itself stop the spread enormously, but because it makes you think, when you walk into a room," he said, before referencing his present situation as a guest on a talk show. "We all just met backstage and I wouldn't shake anyone's hand, and it made it intensely awkward, and suddenly everyone was talking about coronavirus. I quite like that. Then you start to get out the alcohol gel."
He continued, stating other ways that people could greet one another without fully grasping someone else's fingers and palms in the way we typically do with a proper handshake. Among the suggestions: air kisses, a bow, a wave, a foot tap, a knuckle bump, but his favorite was the same as Diesel's—an elbow bump.
"All of that makes people conscious of hygeine," the doctor finished. "Everyone should be invested, and no one should panic."
“Every single person in the UK should be changing their behaviour today”
Doctor @xandvt says that hand washing is the most important thing we can do as a country to slow the spread of coronavirus #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/RRa5hSUilK— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) March 5, 2020
The elbow bump has been catching on in more official capacities as well. U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams was seen greeting Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont last week using this gesture, demonstrating himself how it should properly be done.
“We’re encouraging communities to think about the steps they can take to limit spread within communities to mitigate the effects of the virus,” he told reporters last week. “We should probably rethink the handshake for a while.”
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