We live in a golden age of social media… which means we live in a golden age of social media scandals, for better or for worse. Our favorite type of social media scandal? Outrage over bagels. When something goes down with bagels, Twitter melts down, too. Maybe it’s because bagels are so beloved — and there’s clearly one superior way to eat them (cream cheese and lox, obviously) — but people have Feelings on bagels and don’t hold back on sharing them.
Because we’re a Jewish food site, and bagels just won our first annual Jewish food tournament, we decided to take a look back at the most ridiculous bagel scandals in recent history (in chronological order). You’re welcome.
February 2017: #Bagelgate trends for the first time
The first time #bagelgate is used as a Twitter hashtag is in relation to a London metro train. It’s a two minute long video, tweeted out by a user named Dougie Stew. Watch the whole thing:
Welcome to London #BagelGate pic.twitter.com/KcJoz0ycZU
— dougie stew🗿 (@DougieStew) February 26, 2017
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It’s absolutely ridiculous. As Joel Golby writes in Vice, “Roughly: an entire train carriage of adults are Losing Their Goddamn Minds over a bagel/multiple bagels. I do not understand how something like this escalated into an entire train carriage of people chanting and laughing. I do not know what giddy euphoria overcame an entire train carriage in such a way that the police had to be called. I do know that this feels extremely important, this video, arguably the most important video of the year.” (Read the whole article breaking down the video, seriously, it’s hilarious.)
Twitter loved #bagelgate. It was British! Absurd! Drunk!
https://twitter.com/_tylerjohn/status/836284100839342081
Even the British Transport Police weighed in:
Let's be clear, no bagel should be treated so cruelly
And no one subjected to intimidating behaviour
Ever need us text 61016 👍
— British Transport Police (@BTP) February 27, 2017
Anyhoo. This seems to be the first incident associated with #Bagelgate.
Fast forward over a year…
September 2018: Cynthia Nixon’s bagel order
Over Rosh Hashanah 2018, New York gubernatorial candidate (and former Sex and the City star) Cynthia Nixon ordered and ate a cinnamon raisin bagel with lox and capers. People called it #bagelgate and promptly freaked out.
Very unfortunate that #BAGELGATE (a.k.a. Cynthia Nixon's controversial bagel order) occurred over Rosh Hashanah, but luckily, the bagel news cycle continues. https://t.co/p7c2znHDmM
— emily burack (@emburack) September 12, 2018
There were think pieces galore:
Cynthia even turned it into a fundraising opportunity.
But, honestly, when a bagel order is considered a scandal in New York politics, I think we all win.
October 2018: The terrible bagel emoji
Apple released a new set of emojis this past fall, including a bagel, which we promptly labeled “the saddest carb ever.” It looked like a “gentile bagel.” People also deemed this #bagelgate. Does a #bagelgate happen every month on Twitter? Maybe. Are we complaining? Absolutely not.
Apple finally made a bagel emoji and it's the most gentile bagel ever bakedhttps://t.co/UxnNuTUnZa
— Josh Glancy (@joshglancy) October 2, 2018
No one was happy! Apple actually updated their bagel emoji after the backlash — it now has cream cheese! — but we’re still deeply unsure about the emoji. At least we have one?
November 2018: Ice T has never had a bagel
It all began with an innocent Twitter question. One reader asked Ice T, “what is your favorite bagel?” This was his response:
Lol. I’ve never eaten a Bagel in my life… https://t.co/1a4jtL9qTP
— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) November 9, 2018
Yes, you read that correctly: he’s never eaten a bagel. WHAT! Ice T, you are a detective on Law & Order, the iconic New York cop show. New Yorkers eat bagels!!! Where is your method acting?!
He went onto clarify that while he’s held bagels on the show, he never “once took a bite”:
https://twitter.com/HashtagGriswold/status/1060959689746333696
Wild.
March 2019: Nazi bagels
Okay, this is maybe the worst of all bagel scandals.
The billionaire German family the Reinmanns (who own Einstein Bros. Bagels, Krispy Kreme Donuts, Panera Bread, and various other franchises) recently admitted that the company’s Nazi-era directors were Nazi supporters who used slave labor. Cool.
https://twitter.com/hels/status/1110307409896062977
The Washington Post reported, “The two men were anti-Semites and avowed supporters of Adolf Hitler, and Reimann Sr. donated to the paramilitary SS force as early as 1933.”
As dark as this news is — a family with Nazi history using a Jewish name to sell bagels — Twitter still found time to joke about it.
There’s an Einstein Bagels near my office and let’s just say I had a feeling nazis were behind those bagels
— Seth Abramovitch (@SethAbramovitch) March 26, 2019
Also March 2019: “St. Louis style” bagels
And last, for now, is the shanda that was the “St. Louis style” sliced bagels.
Today I introduced my coworkers to the St Louis secret of ordering bagels bread sliced. It was a hit! pic.twitter.com/XNGbljtpYz
— Alek Krautmann (@AlekKrautmann) March 26, 2019
Actually, we wrote a whole article about this one.
We’ll update this timeline as more #BAGELGATES occur. Bye!
