(Author’s note: Excuse me while I get all meta on you.)
Full-disclosure time: When I first saw on Lane Jensen’s IAM page pictures of the microdermal he’d put into someone’s eyelid, I was mortified. This was too much, too risky, and, though I had not been apprised of the details of the situation, it read as irresponsible at best and fame-seeking at … well, not quite “worst,” but getting there.
The client, it seemed, was quite young [Author’s note: She was 17 years old and her father was present. My point stands, nonetheless], with minimal visible prior body modification work done — not to say she was too immature, but, in the same way that most responsible tattoo artists will refuse to work on a lightly tattooed client’s hands or face, so should it be when it comes to highly experimental piercings (a distinction which, for the sake of this article, we’ll say includes microdermals). Because, as widespread as microdermals have become (and my God have they become widespread), this is still a new concept. The first images of microdermals (then called “dermal anchors” — oh, memories!) appeared on BME in an image update dated October 27, 2005. The first mention of them on ModBlog was April 15, 2006. On November 6, 2006, an article was published featuring interviews with a number of practitioners who had been performing microdermal procedures.
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| ModBlog’s first microdermals |
So let’s say that microdermals are, in their current iteration (as a modernized and ostensibly simplified version of traditional transdermals), at most, about two-and-a-half years old. In most circles, this would place a project in its infancy — far from having been extensively tested or fine-tuned, and potentially rife with unknown (and sometimes well known) risks. (Very seldom are feature films released, for example, that comprise a series of unedited first takes.) Yet, in the body modification community, infamous for its impetuousness, two-and-a-half years is an eternity. The idea of the “guinea pig” is now largely irrelevant; as soon as something “new” has been done, provided the client doesn’t die on the spot, it’s added to the portfolio, uploaded to all manner of Internet forums and, if it’s interesting enough, it’ll probably even get posted on ModBlog.
Pardon me while I put on my ombudsman hat, but make no mistake: ModBlog takes a lot of blame here, playing the dual role of collective consciousness and enabler. Almost everything posted on ModBlog comes via BME submissions, which are filtered for funny, attractive and generally unique content, given a punny caption and then offered up to be criticized and lauded, copied and adopted.
That is to say, ModBlog is supposed to feature the best that BME has to offer.
Such is our position: We want to promote an environment in which new, exciting and beautiful procedures can be put on display and discussed, yet we’re also an archive, for whom comprehensive documentation is a mandate. Appearing on ModBlog, vitriol of the commentariat notwithstanding, is often a validation of sorts: If it’s good enough for BME to showcase, shouldn’t it be good enough for you?
Well, no. Not always. Sometimes in documenting things, we come off a little too enthusiastic about items that aren’t quite ready for prime time, or that we’ve convinced ourselves are worthy of attention simply because we’ve given them a lot of attention — the state of “being famous for being famous.” (See also: Anything related to Kim Kardashian or Brooke Hogan; Gawker’s tireless efforts to track Julia Allison’s every move; The Hills in its entirety.) Is this really a healthy phenomenon? Making stars out of people because of their physical modifications and creating an environment in which this miniscule level of fame can be achieved by pushing one’s limits further, harder and, quite possibly, dangerously quickly? There’s a fine line between celebrating the community and unduly, unfairly celebritizing its members.
And, like I said, this is, to an extent, our fault — “us” being the body modification media, slight as we may be. There is — be it real or imagined — an element of pressure to be more “extreme,” for lack of a better word (and there are many). On another forum, one commenter recently posted that he’d just passed his one year anniversary of entering the wonderful world of body modification, and posted the following laundry list of work he’d done (consider the entire quote [sic]):
septumx2, smileyx2,tongueweb, Apadravya, lorumx5, fingerwebx3, handwebx3, nipplex2, navelx3, lobex9, conchx2, helix/2g Dermal Punch, tragusx2, eyebrowx6, labretx10, “rhino”/unidentified
Though I definately don’t still have all those and I counted where I re-did piercings, I remember wach one… I wonder what mods are to come in the future?
Fifty-three piercings and six tattoos in one year. His first year. Holy crap. Another poster followed up with their own first-year anniversary inventory ([sic] again):
it all started with a septum piercing … It’s now at 1g … 0g flat punch, 0g conch punch, x4 vertical bridges, x4 horizontal eyebrows, 6 tattoos, 1 chest scarification, 6 lip piercings, venoms (now stretched to 10g), tongue webbing, ears pierced at 8g (now 5/8ths), multiple arm surface, belly button, clavicle surface, x2 nape, x5 lower back surface, tragus, smiley.
AND MANY MORE TO COME.
This isn’t a journey — it’s an obsession, whether it’s instigated internally, by a desire to fit in, lead the pack, or otherwise. A bodybuilder doesn’t start out deadlifting 700-pound weights. A mountain climber doesn’t scale K2 as an introductory ascent. This is unhealthy behavior, regardless of the outlet, but body modification allows for it rather easily — even encourages it, be it to pad a portfolio or to get one’s 15 minutes of ModBlog fame. If I had a nickel for every conversation I’ve had with people who mention the role that ModBlog played in the popularization of microdermals, well, I’d probably be able to afford to have one put in my eyelid.
This isn’t to decry experimentation or having fun with one’s body — Rachel posted a video of Lassi doing a guiche suspension a few weeks ago, for God’s sake. But this eyelid microdermal business is different; these images presented an ethical dilemma. By all accounts, it was awfully unsafe and, while not in direct contact with the eyeball, would potentially be a nightmare for the general eye-region. It’s one thing for a trained professional and experienced body modification enthusiast to throw a hook through his taint, but it’s another matter entirely to risk massive harm to a young, inexperienced client just because the opportunity presented itself and it seemed like an interesting procedure to try. I’m not an expert of anatomy, but one thing I’ve picked up on is that unless you are incredibly certain of your methods and the anticipated outcome, you don’t screw around with someone’s eyes. In a field in which calculated risk-taking comprises a significant portion of the action, simple consent should not be the be-all end-all for a practitioner when deciding whether or not to perform an experimental procedure.
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| The microdermal in question |
On the other hand, though? This was ModBlog fodder in every conceivable way. It was probably the first time it had been done, it looked healthy enough and, most importantly, it was new. Considering our standards, it probably deserved to be posted.
We decided not to post it. ModBlog’s influence is tangible, and we decided that appearing to endorse it in any way would have been irresponsible. Let’s wait, we thought, and maybe once we can see some results, we can determine if this is appropriate to post. It would end up in the BME image archives, of course, but ModBlog, to be sure, is a different beast altogether. This was a test — one that didn’t need to be publicized, and arguably performed on the wrong client. We didn’t want to be nannies or censors — BME would still accept the photos for its galleries — but as for ModBlog? This didn’t yet embody the best that BME had to offer. Body modification practitioners should cherish their guinea pigs — not exploit them.
Of course, being an online company has its drawbacks. Through a miscommunication, it ended up getting published on ModBlog. Naturally, some people loved it, some peopled hated it. Some claimed it was yet another moment in BME’s perpetual decline, while others probably asked their piercers if they could get their own (or, conversely, some piercers likely asked their clients if they were interested in trying it out). This isn’t a criticism of the chain of events: It’s just occurred enough by this point that there exists a recognizable pattern and, for the most part, we love it (see also: mustaches tattooed on fingers, etc.) — that’s why we do this. Body modification is a passion, and dealing with it professionally every day would be impossible if we weren’t legitimately excited by people’s experimentation and determination to modify and beautify themselves.
But that’s not an absolute, and it doesn’t mean that everything must be supported or looked upon favorably. Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be; there may be no right reasons for modifying yourself, but there are sure as hell wrong ones, and those are made substantially worse when the client is being used — whether it’s by the one performing the procedure or the one publicizing it.
(Ed. note: While Jordan is an editor for and a valued member of BME, this is an editorial and does not necessarily reflect the views of other BME staff or BME as a publication. As well, Lane has been invited to do an interview and defend his position. This will be published as soon as possible.)
Comments
207 responses to “On Eyelid Microdermals, ModBlog and Turning Body Modification Into a Contest.”
I agree….. in general, yet to censor it on Modblog, this is odd to me.
The ammount of stuff displayed on BME and Modblog(good/bad/ugly/beautiful), this is why we come here right?
To see new things learn whats up with other people and there mods???
I agree the piercing should not have been done for various reasons already stated… yet IF IN FACT she did get screwd over and the guy effed it up, took her eye out, lied about him doing them befor, said it would be free if she let him try it out……(what ever could have gone wrong) she would not have sent in the picture right?
So in the end someone else ruined there reputation, and got all of this attention out of it and we got something new to look at….
50 piercings in a year has to be damn expensive.Idon’t think i have it in me to do something like that.
Although it’s not the primary focus of the article, I agree that the desire to fit in prompts some people to modify themselves more extremely, mainly in teenagers. I see plenty of the younger kids I used to go to school with a few years back desperately trying to one-up one another with larger stretched lobes and facial piercings to prove how hardcore they are. We’re talking age 15, 16 etc. One or two isn’t enough, and not having enough makes you some kind of wannabe. It’s crazy.
Waitt, who doesn’t love sleeved-out 18-year-olds?
Anyway, I enjoy the thoughtfulness and reflection involved in this post. Please continue to editorialize, it’s a very refreshing perspective.
(apologies if this is a bit rambling but im just after finishing a 43 hour, 6 day week with no time off)
i liked this article, but while it did point out that a lot of people immitate what they see on sites such as BME, it didnt seem to directly quote the line which i feel is most directly responsible for it. usually its something along the lines of “healed well, no problems” , and tis usually related to something a bit ……odd.
im all for progress. i LOVE some of the inventive things that people come up with. at the same time, i feel that posting something like “got it done 6 months ago, has healed well, no discomfort or problems” can be a bit misleading. i mean in all fairness, thats no discomfort or problems for that one person, not for the procedure itself. different people have different reactions to the same thing. and different tolerances for comfort and pain.
maybe this type of phrase should be used less often, or on stuff thats been problem free for more than a year or 18 months. personally i’d wait longer, but as was said in the article, 3 years seems like an eternity to a lot of people.
more specifically, about this particular microdermal, the person may not notice anything wrong due to the location. theres no nerves on the surface of the eye. and as an organ, the eye is sealed. your eyes NEVER grow, they are not designed to change size. even something as tested and widely used as contact lenses can go horribly wrong for a person due to the shape of their eye, and nothing can be done to alter the situation. so how do we know that the slight readjusting of pressure around the eye socket, no matter how small, isnt going to do some permanent damage?
pain is the body’s way of drawing attention to something that might be going wrong. pain is triggered by nerves. with none in the eye, how will the body let the person know that the microdermal is causing problems before its too late?
other microdermals, like on hands and feet as pictured in the article, while again i feel are spreading too fast without some people researching em properly, are slightly less dangerous in that a problem will make itself known fairly sharpish.
rushing into stuff like this seems to betray a childish or attention seeking personality. i’ve found with all 7 of my tattoo’s and 6 of my piercings, i’ve spaced them out over time, and as each one heals and for years after, i’ve been admiring them. each one has meant something to me. but people getting 30 / 40 / 50 in the space of a year or two strike me as just trying to impress other people, rather than make themselves happy.
wtf their is more risky shit on this site then a microdermal on an eyelid.
I agree with most aspects of this article. I’d love to hear more :]
It all comes down to the fact that there are too many idiots in the world; people who are much too willing to cannonball into the deep end of the mod pool, yet completely unwilling to spend an afternoon doing research. I myself am young (18) and modified, and have spent countless hours fawning over modblog entires; but I’ve also spent hours on google- reading articles, searching for helpful experiences, and researching safe and clean piercing/tattoo shops. I’m young, but informed.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about most people my age, and therein lies the problem. They don’t understand the risks behind piercings and the fact that tattoos are, indeed, permanent. I applaud Jordan for bringing attention to this; now how to fix it? And is it even modblog’s /responsibility/ to fix it?
I’ve had a few piercings done by Lane and he seemed pretty cool. However, after all this eyelid microdermal drama i’ve lost all my respect for him. To me, i think he did this procedure simply because the opportunity came in his direction and he wanted to slap his name on it before anyone else could regardless of who the client was. What bothers me the most is how he acted like a royal ass in the comments for the original post like no one around him should question his authority. I realize piercing a 16 year old in Canada is legal but it seems like he doesn’t even care about the well being of the girl, sure her microdermal is fine but what about that lip piercing that caused such a shitstorm? just cuz he didnt do it, it doesnt matter if its not doing well? I dont think i’ll be going to dragon anymore, or atleast not until Lane climbs off his crucifix.
I agree with the vast majority of this…
but every person IS different just because some 17 year old (ie:me) gets like 50 piercings in a year doesn’t mean I’m doing it for attention or to fit in, granted some people do. actually most people do. But I’ve actually been ostracized by the body modification community for it! I’ve been trying to get a job as an apprentice piercer now for quite a while and each place I have been to they have told me I had ‘too many piercings, and would scare away the customers’ yeah, too many piercings…to become a piercer.
Since then I have taken out the majority of them and now have a ‘normal’ job getting prepared to go to a ‘normal’ school. so if you are looking to cast hate over you’re own community you should probably believe everything this man is saying. Otherwise you should grow up and make a decision for yourself, and realize that the youth are here to push it more to the extreme more than what the more mature people in the community are doing. It’s the same with EVERY subculture. get over it.
I worded that last part really weird I just realized.
oh well, my point came across.
“It raises the questions if the media is responsible for teaching us, or if we are responsible for teaching ourselves?
I personally think that Modblog (or any other form of media outlet) is there to give information and news.
What people choose to do with that information is their own responsibility.” -Shadark
This says it all.
The vast majority of us are big kids. Old enough to make our own decisions. If you’re trying to censor a media outlet to protect the idiots out there who are willing to try dangerous, irrational things then you’re going to be censoring for a looooong time.
i’m going to go get 3 of them now. since i saw it on modblog i have to have it now.
Well like many have said the article was very well written and points out many of the flaws in BME, ModBlog and the modification culture as a whole. Thank you for that.
With the information that the subject of the eyelid dermal anchoring was underage the question turns from whether the piercing is appropriate to whether or not the piercing should be considered criminal. The fact that her father apparently signed for an experimental procedure that put his child in danger of permanent medical danger. (consider the chance of a violent forced rejection that could damage or destroy her eyelid and subsequently require reconstructive surgery or partial blindness)
The one issue I have is the damnation of dermal anchors (microdermals). While there is no question that they are risky, a quality, thoughtful piercer who informs the client of the risks and considers the placement the mental state of their client can install dermal anchors responsibly. Yes there are many piercers who are far to cavalier with dermal anchors but when the piercer and piercie are well informed and prepared for the semi-permeant procedure that is dermal anchoring, it is a good procedure that opens doors in the mod community.
**note** I have two very successful dermal anchors and therefore I am biased when it comes to responsible dermal anchoring.
*get out two cents*
If she wanted it done, and Lane had refused, someone down the line would have done it for her. Or, she may have attempted to do it herself. Was it dangerous? Yes. But a lot of piercings/implants and other body modifications are as well. I, for one, refuse to jump on this bandwagon. I understand Jordan’s position, but I also understand the client’s and Lane’s. *throws in two cents and douses self in flame retardant solution*
really god article…but i just want to say, piercings on the eyelid: someone had to do it first. In the world of body modifications there are always risks, and to try new things you got to take them. I’m not a heavy modified person (yet) but i did a tattoo on my eyelids, and i sure know the risks of it, and i know this was a big decision in my life, but i have my reasons to do it on that part of my body, not everyone who does extreme things are looking for atention, nowdays it is a trend to be extreme, but there are still some of us who do it for themselfs. I really hope with time this all “im pierced so i’m fashion” thing pass out.
(sorry for my english :x…)
Very well stated, and I’m looking forward to reading Lane’s interview as well. I would love to see more editorial pieces like this on ModBlog in the future. Thanks also for bringing up the issue, I enjoy seeing the different points of view in the comment section and am glad this community is capable of well reasoned discussion.
there’s just so many posts to this that irate me to no end…But I’ll just touch one something I quickly scanned passed.
This “Community” should NOT be here to “push you to go further and more extreme”
This “community” is SUPPOSE to be here to support and stand by your PERSONAL journey with Body Modification.
It should not be here to make contests and have people trying their best to out do someone. Does anyone even remember back in the day when it was solidly confirmed in that belief? Back when it WASN’T a race/contest?
Support and Respect someones decision to have their body modified…DON’T make it into a contest and push yourself and others to have more than anyone else or have the next big thing
Remember people…Body Modification is: my journey….my life….
Jordan this was VERY well written and I applaud this entry and thank you for trying to remind people to just relax and enjoy body modification, not cram it down peoples cram holes.
I think a bolted on eye patch held in place by microdermals would be the best thing ever.
Lucas: I’ll let you know how it goes…I got a 12 year old wanting that exact placement…they even brought in a patch with a skull and cross-bones on it.
YAAAARRRRRRGGGGH!
the “had lane not done it” argument holds very little argument when it comes to ethics and responsibility.
If a client comes in and wants you to pierce their nipples and masturbate on them, you dont say “well…. if I don’t… someone else will”
I mean, SOMEONE might..
ok. bad example.
That is to say, ModBlog is supposed to feature the best that BME has to offer.
Ummm…I believe ModBlog has shown quite a bit of crap in it’s lifetime.
I don’t really understand the hullaballoo over this microdermal. We’ve seem umpteen fingers, toes, feet, and earlobes cut off and carved up. We’ve seen blue ink injected into eyeballs. We’ve seen penises cut off or sliced open. Hell, even people’s cutting due to mental problems (not all are related to mental issues, don’t get me wrong) are put on display.
This girl and her father went in and had this procedure performed on her. It seems to me they will have to deal with the outcome of having something done that hasn’t been done before. All piercings started out that way, someone was the guinea pig. She just happens to be the one for this microdermal placing.
Big ups Jordan! A very good read indeed.
I don’t think there needs to be censorship though, as we should be mature enough as a comunity to decide for ourselves if we think its a good progression or not. If it is so decided that it is a dumb idea, then there will be record of it not being approved of by this community in these archives.
What do we ACTUALLY want as a collective? to have a mod-ethical charter that we all agree to follow, not getting, giving or even acknowledging any mod procedure that has not been previously accepted and endorsed by a regulatory mod-comittee?
OR
Would we rather participate in a dynamic community where new procedures, no matter how controversal, can be discussed, the pros and cons weighed up, and a general opinion and knowledge base be formed around each procedure, as a concept, aswell as the execution of the example procedure?
Personally I say the latter is better, its how we encourage good progression.
Nah this eyepatch would be made out of stainless sheet metal curved to fit the eye with some bolts holding it on… Can you say effin hardcore?
and maybe a laserpointer and red lights installed!
Squid:
“I don’t think there needs to be censorship though, as we should be mature enough as a comunity to decide for ourselves if we think its a good progression or not.”
You give this community far too much credit. As Jordan posted the community has now erupted into a borderline obsessive group of individuals always wanting to out do one another…
as for your comparison…Funny thing about MANY industries…They all are always coming up with new methods and practices, new ways to go about something…Its not saying new things CAN’T be tried out, but realistically the current state in which the Body Piercing Profession tests these cases out, is going to one day lead to the death of an individual.
Now some people don’t care about other peoples lives…Some will say “you have to break a few eggs to make an omlette”…I say FUCK THAT we should NEVER be seriously putting anyones lives at risk.
If you don’t know how something will work, or what the risks are,etc…You don’t just do it…You get educated on the matter and THAN attempt it.
It’s called being pre-cautious and caring of those you are working on.
In this day an age I can see what the clients are on this wave length because these ideas of being cautious and caring are so removed and now its all about the almighty dollar and doing anything and everything the individual wants regardless…
Lucas: LMAO!
i think the argument jordan makes is sound. hell id say its valid. and where as i wouldnt be convinced a microdermal on the eye lid would be a good idea, i did think the toe and finger were decent placement choices. and seeing as how those are my photos being shown above lanes i think i can put my two cents in. i did those two pieces on not just clients but close friends. call them guinea pigs if you want, but they were not paying customers. i firmly believe ” trying things out” or “experimenting” on clients is bad form. especially on someone who you never know if youre going to see again. its reckless. but i think until lane gets a chance to actually give his opinion its kind of a moot point. was it bad judgement? in my opinion yes. but i didnt do the mod and the real choice lies with lane and his client. collectively we can all point fingers but with modblog promoting anything “cutting edge” lets not skip where some of the blame has to lie. im sorry this is all over the place and not totally linear. but everyone has to make the best choices with their bodies. their bodies. and as a practioner its my job to do what i think is sustainable. again. what i think is sustainable. mistakes will be made. and thats not a cop out just a true statement. everybody wants to see something new. is it for progress? or the chance to point the collective finger and yell “how dare you?”.
Just to add on to my previous post, and in the wake of a great many of the ones that followed it: I find it disturbing how easily people are losing sight of the point. Seriously. Did you all even *read* the article, or did you just look at the pictures and run with it? It wasn’t focusing JUST on the eyelid microdermal, it wasn’t focusing JUST on the guy who did it. It was talking about risky and downright foolish procedures and the way they’re handled in general.
Ps….. wouldent piercing an eyelid with a CBR be even more dangerous (as previsouly displayed on this site.)
The constant rubbing on the eye, causing the raw-ness and the red-ness and the yuck-ness???
That made me cringe(as in it being dangerous) waaaaay more the the eyeball not being touched in this case. Or the tattooing of the eye, or the splitting of this body part and that body part, I dont know, sorry I just had to ramble again.
Warren thinks i’m kidding i’m welding it up right now!
63.: The difference between the extreme body mods (you specifically reference the eyeball tattoos) and this is that in those extreme cases the mods are either self done, or done in an experimental fashion. This was not an experiment. This was a 17 year old. I am 100% for the expansion of the art of body modification and for artists pushing the envelop… when such experiments are done by those heavily intrenched in the community. This is human experimentation and even with her father’s approval it should not have been done.
And the argument that someone would have done it is a moot point. If ANYONE performs experimental mods on underage clients they are in the wrong. Leave experimentation to the professionals.
#71 – Jasmine, your point about tattooing the eyeball – notice how this procedure was done on people who have been involved with the modification community for years and years (Shannon Larratt, Pauly etc), people who know the risks. They didn’t need to be sat down by the artist for a risk talk, they knew them before because of their extensive knowledge.
And about the point of “well if Lane wouldn’t do it, someone would”, I am highly suspicious that this girl didn’t think of this completely on her own. This idea was implanted (no pun intended), into her brain, as a really cool idea, and she simply jumped at it when it was announced as free.
My question would be this: for those two posters who got all that work done in one year: What practitioner are you going to? Because it your artist gave a crap about you as a client vs making money, they would have stopped you at a couple mods in one year. A person who abuses their body that much is likely to have crap for an immune system.
Scott:
I referenced more than eyeball tattoos. If this girl was 18, would the whole thing have been turned into what it has? Is the uproar over the age of the “client” or over the procedure itself? If it’s the age, maybe places like IAM should be 18+, since those younger than 18 obviously can’t make a smart decision when it comes to their body mods (at least that is what it seems you think). If younger people can view places like IAM and we welcome their mods there, why couldn’t a 17 year old get a modification with her parent’s approval?
All body modification is pretty much human experimentation Scott, we’re all doing things to our bodies that get even more strange by the day.
I wonder when there will be an “eyelid microdermal” section on BME? I’m pretty sure it will pop up.
Normally these articles reek of the authors personal insecurities, so I avoid them, this one made me think though and I agree with his sentiment.
Nowadays it seems like people are modifying themselves with no intention to commit to these changes. They do it to one-up each other and to stand out.
lame.
Fakir’s two cents worth. Thank you Jordan for the moral high ground. BME has caused a lot of grief for the Fakir family and school in the past. We have to repeatedly remind the hundreds that come to us for piercer education that the one-up-man-ship they see on the site is not necessarily standard and safe operating procedure. We have always stressed, since our start in 1990, that novel procedures should not be tried until they are proven. And we have always been conservative in teaching new procedures until we are convinced of their sanity and safety. BTW, we did introduced two days of instruction on microdermals in our August 2008 Advanced Piercing Intensive. But it took us four years of experimentation on our own, with much help from the major jewelry manufacturers, before we felt morally ok to add this procedure to our curriculum.
Its rare that I come to bme or modblog and am impressed with something, so thank you jordan.
aww…shucks: I do believe their would have been quite a bit of uproar over the piercing even if she was 18 but the fact is she isn’t. While you do make a good point that all piercing is experimental the question remains; should such extreme experiments be performed on a child? In medicine, you rarely, if ever, hear of a child being the first to receive a new surgical procedure. Should the mod community act any differently?
I do not believe that only those over 18 should be allowed to be modified but, like many states, I believe there are certain modifications that should only be performed on individuals over certain ages. I will be very interested to hear the piercer’s response because though the father was a part of this procedure, it is unknown if he was informed of every risk of the dermal anchoring process. Did the girl tell her dad what was going on? Did she manipulate the situation to get what she wanted?
Please get the piercer’s response. This will clear up many of the disputed facts of the project.
This all seems rather self-important. Some people take this place much too seriously when really all it is is another resource like so many out in the world. Spread the information and leave the judgments for each individual to make for themselves.
As being part of the very few body modification media groups out there you do have a significant role in the world of body modification. However, I believe you are over playing your role, you make it sound like this is some special operations mission gone awry that no one but the highest in the military are even supposed to know about it just got leaked out to all of the public. This is simply an experiment. An important mile-stone just occurred in the micro-dermals. You could have still posted it to us with regards saying that this is experimental, and we are waiting for follow up pictures.
You kept us up to date with the eye tattoos, why is it such a disgrace to keep us up to date with this? Even if you don’t approve of it, this does not mean you should censor it. Just because you post an article about it does not mean you are endorsing it. There are many news groups who do not approve of the wars, however they still let the public know about them, and how they are going. They do not censor us from it, yet they do not endorse it.
We are a community that some members of us support such extreme things such as castration, amputation, scarification etc…. Don’t you think relative to our normal behaviors this is a very small happening just blown out of proportion?
Sincerely, Bunson
As someone mentioned a few comments above mine, the only issue I had was that she was under the age of eighteen, but she had her father’s consent.
Whether or not she had it done because it was free, or because she wanted it, it was willful. Her father seemed to believe she could handle the piercing, and as long as they both completely understood the possible risks of such a procedure, well it should be honky-dory.
That the piercer would perform this experimental piercing is what I’m more concerned about, because it’s experimental. But as I mentioned above there was consent, how ever misguided it may have been or not.
One should be responsible for their own actions and suffer the consequences, not a website though warnings on such are very much welcome.
As for influencing the modification community and attention seekers… well, what’s the big deal? Their modification choices are not detrimental to anyone but themselves if anything less than ideal would happen, if they modifications were to become infected, reject, reduce their employment possibilities, or what have you. Sure, some of these can be annoying and the IAM community has many of these people who seem to modify themselves for attention purposes, but we are a community not a blanket entity. We are not all the same, we do not modify ourselves for the same reasons, and not all of us take breaks between one modification and another.
Good post Jordan. When new ideas come to light, I like to see a discussion of the good and bad aspects of it, not just a picture with a “cool” message.
Sensationalism without sensibility can be found anywhere. Modblog should rise above this and be an example to others as to how to report innovations responsibly. The ability to comment on posts is an important aspect of this. I would have liked to have seen some comments from the people involved in this as part of the original post.
Keep up the good work!
Well written, Jordan. Thanks for posting =)
On a website that has previously posted a lengthy interview with a man who eats the shit from diapers he finds in the dumpsters behind Aids clinics getting on your high horse about an eyelid microdermal smacks of hypocrisy. Since when was BME / Modblog about passing judgement on other peoples decisions? This development doesn’t sit right with me at all.
a good article although a little more opinionated than i’d like..
Dear People toting this as an “experiment”
Please go back to school and learn what a PROPER experiment is.
Even back when the initial article involving Microdermals/Surface Anchors came out I was a LOUDLY against the claims of “hey we’re only experimenting”
Mainly because I don’t know what science classes all you have been too…But proper experimentation doesn’t involve: “Ok so you want what where? COOL!” If anyone did any sort of Experiment in school, they’d be slapped with a big huge “F”
There’s a Hypothesis, Experiments, Testing & Evaluation,etc,etc,etc,etc.
again just going ahead and doing something, is not experimenting…And I don’t even think Lane associated the procedure with experimentation he said: “wanted to see if it was possible”…Sure it can be argued that Lane was “experimenting” but if that’s what he and others are going to call it, its being completely improperly labeled as “experimenting”
I’m very much looking forward to read/hearing what Lane has to say on this subject…Although I suspect it just to be another way for him to justify why he did what he did…Honestly I don’t think things like this should be encouraged…As all it does it give more media attention to it, so people can read and emulate it. Any news is good news and all that sorta stuff.
If modblog were the best BME has to offer BME would never have made it this far.
More posts like this one though and it could start approaching that standard.
I have quite a few mods. To some people who don’t know me I suppose they could believe I’m trying to be an attention seeker or have “a desire to fit in, lead the pack, or otherwise”. But to people who know me they know this has been a journey of 20 years. Not over nite. Not a race.
I really don’t care what people think, and everyone has to pay for their own sins whether it’s getting an experimental modification or blowing out their ear in a race to beat their friends stretching.
People take their own chances.
It’s not up to me to spoon feed them or police them because I don’t want the favor to be forced onto me.
We’re “encouraged” to emulate things simply by being alive. From the clothes we wear to the body images we seek to the lifestyles of the rich and famous (or not so rich and famous)…to the influences of music and art and even the slang we use. Some of these things are positive and some are not.
The bottom line is that we all have freedom of choice to emulate or not.