dissociatedpress.com » body mods

Did You Check The Elf-Help Section?

admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:14:07 +0000

I saw the first few minutes of the movie Elf at a friend’s house the other night, and Papa Elf’s outline of the career options for an elf caught my attention, since I had recently referenced the racial oppression that Santa’s elves have to endure. Papa Elf only mentioned Keebler Elves (who of course have to be on guard for marauding squirrels), the shoemaker’s elves, and Santa’s elves. He left out the really freaky aspects of the shoemaker’s elf story, i.e.: two nude elves slave away night after night, making shoes that make the shoemaker and his wife filthy rich before they think to bother to repay the elves by making them ONE outfit of clothes. And he didn’t say anything about the the tragic exploitation of Santa’s elves. You think they enjoy living in the coldest, most isolated place on the planet, working in toy factories year ’round? Hardly. The fact is that they’re being exploited for their OCD-like industriousness and pathological positivism. Tragically, this abuse sometimes leads to insane and criminal behavior. But in spite of the obvious career dead-end that being an elf seems to offer, there are still plenty of people who dream of being one, so we’re here to help. First of all, you’ll need a special elfin name. Thanks to the Elf Name Generator I will have to insist that henceforth you shall refer to me as “Arthanu”, which means “Exalted Male”. Notice how I already started using words like “shall” and “henceforth”? It works! Next, you’ll need to choose a level of commitment. You could do the virtual thing and Elf Yourself, but you’d just be taking part in the terminal stages of a five-year-old Office Max viral infection. One alternative would be My Face LOL, which offers more video choices, and a little less brand-building. If virtual elfing isn’t your thing, you could implement instructables.com’s realistic elf ears in 5 minutes guide, and then just pick up a sleazy elf costume from Amazon. But for some, this simply won’t be enough. You may not realize how deep this obsession can go; there are elf sex fanfiction sites, people who spend all their time subtitling Lord of the Rings clips in Elfish, and really bad Flash games where you dress scantily clad elf chicks. But for the truly commited, the only option is elf ear body mods. And if you’re going to go that far, it might be pretty cool to see if this woman will make you an amazing set of elf wings like these to expand on the getup. As crazy as her expensive and meticulously executed idea seems, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that – like some kind of LOTR nerd – I briefly “fell in Internet love” with her. She’s not only gorgeous, but clearly a hardworking obsessive genius (and since I’m drawn to her, almost certainly married or a lesbian). In any case, see the “making of” video here. Pretty impressive. So in spite of the fact that we’ve wandered away from the realm of the “cute and tiny” variety of elves a bit here, I was left wondering: has anyone done a reindeer antler body mod? This is the closest I could find. A body mod not to be confused with ass antlers.

If you think this is a little crazy and obsessive…

…then you’ve never seen this:

The making of the amazing “The Avariel” wings:

Sometimes the abuse of North Pole elves leads to criminal insantity:

ExtInked: Helping Endangered Species Through Tattoos

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:41:42 +0000

We’ve touched on tattoos and body mods before, and I’ve shared why I may never get a tattoo myself. That may all change though, which I’ll explain at the end of this piece. My new-found willingness to think about getting a tattoo myself was inspired by reading about an interesting “social experiment” that was recently promoted in the UK by Ultimate Holding Company, which -although its web site gives the impression is some sort of non-profit – is in fact an ethically-minded commercial design studio in based in Manchester. In their words, they are “committed to sustainable practices, ethical and responsible business, and design driven grass roots collaboration“. UHC recently put together an exhibit and event called ExtInked, in which 100 “ambassadors” applied to have one of England’s 100 most endangered species tattooed on their bodies. A cool idea, although it might have been interesting to see them do something more than basically garner attention for their own studio; as of this writing, neither their web site, their Facebook page, nor any of the press they’ve generated mentions any tangible results of the idea, beyond a few hundred people getting interested in the concept, and a hundred of them getting tattoos of endangered species. The last I knew, getting “Mom” tattooed on your arm isn’t going to bring her back from the dead. All the same, it’s a pretty cool and hip idea, and it will be interesting to see if generates some real results. I wish the UHC, their partners, and the participants the best, or I wouldn’t be sharing their project here. As I was reading about their project though, I ran across another tattoo idea that hit closer to home. Earlier this year, Phil Plait of Discover Magazine’s “Bad Astronomy” Blog announced he’d get a tattoo if site traffic increased to 2 million page views for a month. It worked, and he and Discover CEO Henry Donahue ended up getting tattoos. So here’s the deal. I’ll get a tattoo if Dissociated Press traffic increases to 250,000 monthly page views in January. Right now it’s hovering around a paltry 20,000 page views monthly, a level that – trust me – does not generate enough revenue to make it worth maintaining. So, much like the UHC’s project, if you don’t want to see Dissociated Press become extinct, send us some visitors. Maybe I’ll let you pick the tattoo.

Long Line At The Body-Mod Shop? It’s Okay To Take Cuts

admin — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:30:55 +0000

The Pince-nez Becomes The Pierce-nez

[Please Note: many of these links are NSFW] We’ve touched on body modification before (see tattoos for teeth, self-embedding, or self-harm coverups), but I must confess my own eccentricities and open-mindedness leave me perplexed as to what I really feel about body modification of any kind. Although I’ve done some self-branding, I would probably never get a tattoo, unless it was for some ritualistic purpose. At the same time I admire nice ink work on my friends. I think most cosmetic surgery is a mistake – we’ve all seen the more dramatic examples – but even more “successful” work leaves me befuddled. For instance, I think almost all the breasts in this cosmetic surgeon’s folio were more attractive before the surgery. So where is “normal” in all of this? I find it hard to believe that a person who endures the discomfort and resulting permanent alteration of getting a tattoo doesn’t have something going on besides merely adorning themselves, but the limited studies that have been done on the topic suggest that although a person with tattoos is perceived negatively by others (especially if they’re a woman) there’s little to support the notion that they’re aberrant; in fact, one of the few comprehensive studies suggests they’re simply risk-taking personality types. And even when referring to less fashion-oriented body-modding like self-cutting, it seems to have a positive side. Personally, I kind of have to draw the line at things like the pierce-nez (even the pince-nez is hard to pull off, unless you’re Morpheus), corset piercings, or head implants (for the record, the guy in that head implant link apparently is a little aberrant, he’s up on teen sex charges). But who am I to judge? If you’re interested in a little DIY modding of your own, check out this Instructables Guide To Elf Ears, or 8 awesome things you can implant into your body. And if you’re not emo enough to really cut yourself, there’s always the on line self-cutting generator.

This Gets Under My Skin A Little

admin — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:45:33 +0000

Please note: the following may be NSFB (Not Safe For Breakfast). As someone who has no tattoos, but has a fair number of decorative scars (some by design, some more “improvisational”) I find various kinds of body mods interesting. I find some people’s tattoos unfortunate, sort of like a bad haircut that will be with them for life, but I really admire some people’s body art, and especially find it interesting if it has a ritual meaning to the person. After all, we’re all still members of some big tribe when you get down to it. In spite of my open-mindedness, I found it a little distrubing to read that radiologists have helped identify a trend amongst teenagers that they’re calling self-embedding disorder. Although I feel I have a keen understanding of self-cutting and other forms of self-modification, I can’t quite get my mind around what feelings would lead to the behavior. And in the case of this body modding (Warning: rather gory images), I’m not sure the almost-surgical means justify the end (pictured). But I’m sure it beats a stick in the eye.

Getting Your First Tattooth

admin — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:24:48 +0000

What do Princess Diana, Amy Winehouse, Abraham Lincoln, Elvis, David Letterman, Tiger Woods, and George Washington have in common? You can get them all “tattooed” on your teeth. Heward Dental Lab of Sandy, Utah offers a (thankfully) unique service. Tooth tattoos. To compliment your attractive new dental body mod, maybe you’d like to try some DIY laser-etching on your nails. Way cooler than just wearing black nail polish (Please, how eighties!). Of course you’ll need to build your home-made laser cutter to complete the task. Careful though, all this body-modding can be addictive.

Self-Harm Cover-Ups for Emo Crybabies

admin — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:06:08 +0000

When I was a young first-generation punk, we cut ourselves because we meant it. Good news for all you peer-pressured, conformist emo rebels though. Now you can get some decorative branding to hide all the little disposable-razor cries-for-help that you posted on MySpace (actually it was Xanga, but only you and your silly Emo friends know what Xanga is). Comfortably enter the already tattoo-friendly youth job market with lovely Carp (oh, I’m sorry, “Koi”…) skin branding that hides your wimpy suicide attempts. For the blind self-cutter, there are always braille tattoos. But this obviously begs the question: Why would you want a tattoo if you couldn’t see it?