@Vasj@pawoo.net The only sense I can make out of the cow nose thing is it started with those dreadlocked hippies, they're who I saw doing it first, and I think it was them referencing or trying to look like tribal primative people, since they as hippies have a lot of respect for "primal living". I have no idea how it jumped the gap between fringe and mainstream though. I want to say dykes were the next ons to do it, it gets confusing because at the same time as that all went on there was always the piercing subculture, who have always had septum piercings, it was just so fringe that it was practically never seen irl.

Timeline to me looks like this.
Piercing culture (see also tattoo culture and body mods) -> Hippies adopt piercing culture -> normies adopt what hippies have adopted