Photos of facial distortions catching on worldwide

ATLANTA -- For Will West, it was love at first brrrrr-buh-brrrr-buh-brrrr.

The 21-year-old Wake Forest student first heard about "jowling" from a friend visiting from California. "He and his group had been jowling earlier in the day. When they told me about it, I thought, 'Oh, that's incredible.' So we jowled."

According to the Web site www.jowlers.com - a database of people caught in flagrante jowlicto - this is how you do it:

1. Loosen all the muscles in your face and refrain from making any expression.

2. Try to keep your eyes and mouth open.

3. Shake your head from side to side as quickly as possible while a picture is being taken.

With any luck, you will end up with a snapshot that displays your face in a state of gross distortion, as if somehow your cheeks had wandered too close to the edge of a black hole.

While West claims that jowling is a West Coast trend, it has in fact caught on thanks to a couple of Nashville guys who run the Web site between college classes.

Patrick Moberg, 20, and Bill Brown, 21 - aka "the Jowl Brothers" - have uploaded more than 5,000 photos of jowlers from 40 countries since the site went live in late 2004. They got the idea from Brown's brother, who claims to have invented jowling during a Colorado ski trip.

These rubber-faced souls, who are mostly in their 20s, capture their indelible portraits in every possible setting - at parties, among co-workers in business attire, in the shower and on stage. The band Guster jowls enthusiastically.

West says the only downside of this activity is the post-jowl headache.

Still, he encourages friends from around the country to submit jowls, the strangeness of which never fail to startle and amuse him. "When I look at the photos and don't think about what they're doing, it's incredible to see."

West also makes time for a "group jowl" when he gets together with old friends. "It's a bonding experience," he claims.