Most of you will have heard of the Bagelhead "trend" - although I am reluctant to use that term to describe it. Perhaps due to the grotesque nature of the Bagelhead procedure, many media outlets caught wind of it, which, as usual, led to sensationalism. Unfortunately, not many of the facts were accurate. A little about the procedure itself - a saline drip is inserted into the customer's forehead. Over a couple of hours, this causes a severe lump on the forehead. The practitioner then presses his thumb into the centre of the lump, creating the distinctive bagel shape. Apparently this can hurt during the process, giving intense headaches, however this passes fairly quickly. Let's move on to the myth-busting: First of all, this trend did not originate in Japan. It is actually the handiwork of Canadian pioneer Jerome Abramovitch. Kerropy Maeda watched the technique being performed by Mr. Abramovitch and began to perform it in Japan. This brings us to our second point - the media reported this as a widespread craze in Japan, however this is far from the truth. Maeda performs the procedure approximately 10 times a year, often for special occasions, such as fetish parties. It is usually only the most hardcore body-modders (split tongues, facial piercings, etc) that have the procedure performed. Finally, the procedure is far from permanent - the human body absorbs saline over time, and the lump is usually gone by the next morning. This just reinforces the fact that the world media is ready to accept just about any crazy trend which is attributed to Japanese culture. The genius part is that the Japanese media were thoroughly confused when they started hearing about the "widespread craze" that the Bagelheads had become in Japan. Don't believe everything you read in the papers, folks!
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