We learn in Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style that media heavily influences our notions on various subcultures. Sometimes, the audience knows little about a subculture other than how it is represented in media and popular culture. Oftentimes, media representations “reinforce cultural beauty ideals while simultaneously encouraging consumption of goods to help one achieve those ideals” (Adams, 105). The extreme body modification subculture does not always fall under cultural beauty ideals and is therefore considered deviant. With cases like the Vampire Woman and Lizard Man (pictured left), society has found it difficult to separate extreme body modification with deviance and delinquency. Recent studies in the youth community suggest that those with body modifications “score significantly higher on depression, hostility and anxiety,” which is often linked to risk-taking behavior such as drug abuse and violence (Nathanson, Paulhus and Williams, 13). Many times in mass media, people who engage in tattooing and piercing practices are painted as more prone to criminal behavior because their sensation-seeking ‘mutilations’ somehow indicate some form of neuroticism. Even just a few years ago, national news outlets like NBC and local news sources like the RiverFront Times in St. Louis released news stories informing the public that studies found correlations between body modifiers and “socially unacceptable behavior,” which is never actually defined to the reader (Conklin, 1). Despite its long history of cultural significance, the extreme body modification subculture cannot seem to escape the common representation of deviance and wrongdoing.
As with many stereotypes, media representations and popular culture are not entirely correct. Though plenty of modifiers want to deviate from mainstream beauty ideals, the idea of deviance in the extreme body modification subculture is not at all intended to prompt criminal behavior. For modifiers, the body becomes a site of exploration that needs to be ‘reclaimed’ from culture (Pitts 75). Common themes and key phrases in the extreme body modification community include self-ownership and reclaiming, as seen in texts and on websites where modifiers gather to share experiences. These sites are spaces where members of the subculture can go to share content and provide support and advice to others. It is also a space for those outside the subculture to gain more knowledge about the body modification community.
Despite constant stigmatization from mainstream society, body modifiers continue to take a positive approach to educating the general public about their subculture. At the bottom of most body modification community sites, there is usually a disclaimer that “urges anyone interested in [these] subjects to educate themselves completely and seek professional assistance” and to make sure to view the site with “respect and intelligence or don’t view at all”. We can see through these sources that the body modification community values respect and open-mindedness when it comes to education on this subculture. Each site also promotes support much in the way Pro-Ana sites do, where no matter what the intention is, non-judgmental support is always favorable. Since these sites are created by modifiers for modifiers as a “source of inspiration, entertainment, and community,” they provide legitimate and authentic insight into interpersonal exchanges in the subculture.
