A poorly healed piercing at age 10 left Aitia with more than a painful memory.
His left ear turned green and never regained its normal color. For twenty years, this Toronto-based film director went from one doctor’s office to another, always hearing the same answer: scar tissue, nothing to worry about. No one looked any deeper.
The real explanation came by accident, in a routine dental X-ray. There, clearly visible, was an object that should not have been there: a butterfly-shaped metal earring clasp, encapsulated inside his ear since childhood. The metal had spent two decades oxidizing in contact with the skin, producing that greenish tone, a phenomenon almost identical to what happens to some Barbie dolls when their earrings react with the material of their bodies. Aitia shared the discovery on Instagram, and the video surpassed 7 million views.