You're Not Wearing Your Earrings Wrong, Just Relax

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Over the weekend, a 19-year old girl named Chelsea Smith was fiddling around with her earrings and noticed something she thought was interesting. The plastic disc attached to the backing of her earring was removable. This, naturally, led her to conclude that if it can be removed, then it should be removed.

She tweeted her discovery. Many people, acting on the logical If Someone Says It On Twitter It Must Be True theory, shared that tweet. At the time of this posting, it had 44,000 retweets and 42,000 faves.

After my nineteen years of living i have now realized that you are supposed to take the plastic part off pic.twitter.com/ejValCaa7G

— Chelsea Smith (@Chelsea__Smithh) August 1, 2015

Mob mentality took over and lifelong earring wearers all over the world ignored common sense and began tearing apart their earring backs in mass hysteria, freeing themselves from the tyranny of the oppressive plastic disc. Major media organizations, sensing a trend in public discourse, began to jump on the breaking news.

Some threatened to change your relationship with your earrings.

Others shamed you for not knowing this already.

At least one called you out for not dismantling your earrings sooner, dummy.

But here’s the thing. Those plastic discs exist for a reason. A couple of reasons, actually. First, they prevent the dreaded droopy ear. Like this.

They also help protect your piercings from stretching. Like this.

And if your piercings have stretched, they keep your earrings in place.

Now, thanks to one innocently misinformed tweet, tens of thousands of women are at risk for droopy and stretched ears. Stop the madness. Stop it now.