The true nature of the Fallout Vault Boy’s iconic pose has been the discussion of internet rumor and myth for years. Despite numerous reddit threads dedicated to the subject, the real answer has actually already been given by the developers of Fallout.

Vault Boy is a mascot of sorts from the Fallout franchise. He has been around since the very first game, though he didn’t get his Vault Boy moniker until Fallout 3. In-game, Vault Boy is often used in Vault-Tec materials to communicate information to players. He is used to represent the player in the Fallout 4 perk tree, for instance, or in a video explaining the S.P.E.C.I.A.L system. The Fallout Shelter mobile game used Vault Boy’s general art style to create the other randomly generated Vault Dwellers that players manage in the game.

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Vault Boy’s signature pose is to stand with a hand extended in a thumbs up, with one eye closed. At some point, a rumor began spreading through the internet that Vault Boy wasn’t simply giving Fallout players encouragement. Instead, the theory ran that Vault Boy was actually using a method of determining if a person was in the fallout radius of a nuclear explosion. Supposedly, if a person held a thumb in front of their face with one eye closed, and could completely cover the mushroom cloud of a distant nuclear explosion, then they were safe from radiation fallout. It was a theory that gave Vault Boy a much more macabre tone, and felt in keeping with the tension between 1950s-style optimism and post-apocalyptic life that defined the Fallout series.

The Real Reason Fallout’s Vault Boy Gives Players a Thumbs Up

This theory of the true nature of Vault Boy’s pose has persisted for years, despite the fact that developers have debunked the theory on more than one occasion. Brian Fargo, head of Interplay for the development of Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics, took to Twitter in 2013 to state “The vault boy simply has a positive attitude.” In 2015, Trammel Ray Isaac, the artist who created Vault Boy in the first place, repeated what he had apparently already explained “Its got nothing to do with measuring the cloud.”

Despite the disappointment that some may have that Vault Boy isn’t hiding a secret meaning, his cheerful nature is still fairly sinister on its own. Vault Boy is meant to be a reassuring presence, that everything is okay and that those in Vault-Tec’s vaults have nothing to worry about. His thumbs up tells Fallout players “You can do it!” even as they are being disemboweled by a deathclaw.

Source: Brian Fargo, Nibel

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Caitlin Grieve
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Caitlin has been writing about video games and sci-fi/fantasy books since 2018. Her video game adventures began a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away as an Imperial pilot in Star Wars: TIE Fighter. When she’s not gaming, she’s reading, and when she’s not reading, she’s writing. But she is ALWAYS plotting her next D&D escapades.

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