Last week’s announcement that smoking scenes will result in more restrictive movie ratings could be the straw that breaks Camel’s back. That’s right hipsters: smoking’s out... and nail biting, is in – way in!

Without the allure of Hollywood sophistication, cigarettes don’t have a lot going for them besides a teeth-staining, breath-stinkening, lung-congesting calm.

Not that we all can’t use a break from LA’s 24/7 stress. If it’s not traffic jams, it’s wildfires. If it’s not our job or relationship, it’s “Tap Water Terror” on the local news.

But while tobacco’s price and death toll soar, nail biting remains safe, satisfying and free. In an era of eroding personal freedoms, here’s a habit that liberates. Bite where you want to, when you want to – in restaurants, at work, at the gym, in the club... especially in the club.

For years, tobacco industry shills marginalized this free smoking alternative as the choice of timid first-graders and Milquetoast accountants. And trendsetters bought it. James Dean wannabes and 7-11 Jezebels smoked themselves tumorous, but they wouldn’t be caught dead biting their nails.

As Gunther Stanley points out in “Fingers to the Bone,” America’s resistance to nail biting dates back to Colonial times when Puritan ministers decried “the Devil’s manicure.” Even as late as the 1890s, the medical establishment blamed “keratophagia” for every malady from incontinence to rheumatism to insanity.

Today, the glove is on the other hand and, thanks to the National Nail Biting Council’s “Give Yourself the Finger” marketing campaign, nail biting is back as “the smart stress-fighter.”

Celebrities including Tobey Maguire, Lebron James and Shakira are on board to tout the hip, healthy alternative to cigarettes. And, in an enterprising bit of “habit placement” Primacy Pictures has revealed that Justin Todd’s crime-fighting superhero will take a bite out of crime and his fingernails in next summer’s Solarman 2. For those who question whether Hollywood really holds sway over consumer behavior, I have two words: “mechanical bulls.”

In a press release, Council Spokeswoman Sherri Lehman reminds us, “Mother Earth won’t tell you to stop biting your nails. This eco-friendly practice produces no airborne toxins and no sodden, tar-clogged filter to toss out the car window when you’re done. Plus, your skin, cuticles and keratin are the ultimate in renewable resources. Biters reconnect with their bodies in harmonious regeneration as they ‘close the protein circle’.”

Marketing aside, though, as with most cultural trends, it’s the underground scene that’s energizing this movement. You’ll see it in the trendier clubs and the avant-garde fashion mags. Run and hide, mani-pedi crowd, because the pain of tattoos and piercings subsides, but gnawing your nails and cuticles is public spectacle. A bloody, ragged, raw mohawk for the hands. Vicious, defiant. Pure attitude: “Yeah, go ahead and stare, f*ckhead! I will chew you up and spit you out.”

by Toby Muller