Modern Tribalism

The tattooing/scarification/multiple piercing thing always left me cold. What's the point of altering yourself permanently? What if you get sick of it down the road? My father in law (may he rest in peace) had tons of tattoos on his body from the old, old days. All of them where done when he was under 21, back in the early 50s. After several years and extensive weight gain, the tattoos were just stretched out blue/black blurs under his skin. He hated them.

Nowadays tattooing seems almost mild-- everybody has some form of permanent ink on them somewhere. And multiple piercings are de rigeur with young women (and some young men). Again, that's a pastime with minimal appeal to me. At least piercing holes usually close up, right? So it's reversable to some extent.

Check out the latest fetish. Surgically modding your body by putting implants under the dermal layer. This seems not only oogy but dangerous.. the idea is to put a silicon casting (pretty much in any shap you can conceive) under your skin to give the skin a raised-up 3D outline of the object. The effect is startling and more than a little oogy for me.. yick. Talk about messing with the factory model.

No thanks!



Klingon Arms?



Does this look comfortable to you?



the star implant from the picture above



This man is sporting the look that boldly states: "I'm marginally employable!"

Oh, these strange modern hipsters. This is too much for me. I can only imagine what these things would be like at my father in law's age. Me, I can't imagine what keeps the body from attempting reject the foreign object-- wouldn't the object get all puffy with white blood cells and such?