In the year 2019, it seems that one tweet can upend civilization.

On Wednesday, people became enraged over Alek Krautmann's tweet about the "St. Louis secret" of slicing a bagel like a loaf of bread.

New Yorkers — or really anyone who has had a bagel before — are skeptical.

One St. Louis bagel store owner told us it's not really a trend.

Don't go on Twitter.

A picture can say 1,000 words — or, if you post it on Twitter, it can prompt 1,000 opinionated replies that you never really asked for.

Such was the case for Alek Krautmann, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employee, who learned this on Wednesday when he posted a picture of a box of bagels sliced like bread. Krautmann didn't immediately respond to INSIDER's request for comment about the chaos that follows.

"Today I introduced my coworkers to the St Louis secret of ordering bagels bread sliced," he wrote. "It was a hit!"

Online, however, it was decidedly not a hit.

People, and especially New York residents who have, uh, strong opinions about bagels, lashed out.

Really, people don't like it.

Some poked fun at the original tweet.

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But it all begs the question: Do people really do this? According to one St. Louis deli owner, not really.

"At my deli maybe one customer out of 200 will ask for the bagels bread sliced," Lenny Kohn, of Kohn's Kosher Meat and Deli Restaurant in St. Louis, told INSIDER. "I don’t think it is a trend. It may be just a convenient way to eat a sweet bagel."

Sliced bagels are particularly popular at St. Louis Bread, which is the regional name for Panera Bread. A close look at Krautmann's pictures shows that he purchased the bagels at a Panera Bread.

"Panera is all about customization and celebrating guest innovation, so we’re down to slice it however you like," the chain said in an email to INSIDER. "Bread slicing bagels is a well-known secret in St. Louis, but you can request this at any of our bakery cafes."

The chain would not say whether or not the bagel-disk-creating, bread-slicing practice is common in St. Louis — or any other Panera location for that matter. Instead, they referred to a tweet that seems to stoke the viral flames.

"Our team is divided over here," the chain wrote. "Do other people slice their bagel Bread Co. style?"

But Kohn said he just doesn't see the appeal and thinks bagels are best eaten in their whole, chewy forms. "I don’t like [sliced bagels] for the fact that the bagel slice dries out so quickly," Kohn said.

Slice at your own risk.