YOU MAY REMEMBER a few months ago when ‘manspreading’ was the word du jour.

The word refers to the phenomenon of men taking up more than one seat on public transport because they are, ahem, spreading their legs.

The phenomenon prompted authorities in New York to start a campaign urging passengers against taking up too much room on the subway.

Around the same time, a photo of Tom Hanks appearing to ‘manspread’ on the Subway appeared on the internet.

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The news attracted outrage from certain corners of the internet.

This week, Hanks got an opportunity to say his piece about the incident and had a few words for those accusing him of ‘manspreading’.

The actor stated that the subway car was “half empty” and instructed the internet to “back off”.
https://vine.co/v/O0X2Ki0XuVT

I’m not a guy who is gonna take up space! There were like 14 seats that were free. So all I was doing was relaxing on the train ride uptown. So hey Internet, back off!

Internet, you just got told.

Explainer: what is ‘manspreading’ and why are people talking about it? >