Pop Culture dictionary

#Bagelgate

or Bagel Battle or St. Louis Food Hacks [bey-guhl-geyt]

What does #Bagelgate mean?

#Bagelgate refers to a viral Twitter post in March 2019 showing bagels sliced “St. Lous-style,” like a loaf bread.

The tweet sparked a lot of humorous discussion, light-hearted outrage, and general puzzlement on social media.

Related words

Gamergate, headdesk, oat milk, nontroversy, in the field, Idiot Sandwich meme

Where does #Bagelgate come from?

On March 25, 2019, Twitter user @AlkKrautmann tweeted a a picture of bagels he very charitably brought for his office. There was something curious about them, though: they were cut vertically, like sliced bread, rather than through the middle. @AlkKrautman wrote that this was the “St. Louis secret” of ordering bagels—and the internet had opinions.

Over the next few days, the nontroversy was quickly dubbed #Bagelgate, featuring the –gate suffix (from Watergate) to indicate a scandal. Everyone from everyday bagel eaters to companies like Panera to media outlets like BuzzFeed weighed in, typically commenting that such slicing was sacrilegious—and wondering what’s going on in St. Louis. Others, though, saw the “St. Louis-style” as genius.

But, hold your cream cheese! This was not the first #Bagelgate! One occurred in September 2018 when Sex and the City actress and New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon revealed she ate lox on a cinnamon raisin bagel.

Yet another occurred in October 2018 when Apple unveiled what many New Yorkers felt was an unimpressive bagel emoji, 🥯. Apple later revamped it.

Examples of #Bagelgate

The only acceptable time to cut a bagel in half: when it is the bread portion of a sandwich consisting of more than two ingredients besides the bagel. #bagelgate
@hintofspy, April, 2019
Soon after, #SaintLouisStyle usurped #BagelGate as the absurd food Twitter hashtag du jour. #SaintLouisStyle is a now an emblem for food scams all over the world – from fast food dinners at the White House to the distressed shores of the island of Exuma during the Fyre Festival.
Michelle Santiago Cortés, Refinery29, March, 2019
Imgrum
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Who uses #Bagelgate?

Twitter erupted in good-natured dispute about #Bagelgate. Two sides emerged in the Bagel Battle: those in favor of traditional bagel cutting, and those who realized the advantages of bread-sliced bagels.

Others started poking fun of St. Louis by joking they ate all of food in weird ways, referencing #Bagelgate and #StLouisStyle.

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Note

This is not meant to be a formal definition of #Bagelgate like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of #Bagelgate that will help our users expand their word mastery.

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