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Even though body modification survives in less urbanized areas through ritualistic practices, it has also found its way into mainstream culture. Tattooing and radical piercing (other than cartilage piercings) has become more normalized and more visible. Recent examinations show that the “most common radical body modifications [occur] among college students” (Foster and Hummel, 6). Like many subcultures, extreme body modification has gained traction through youth and the youth generation, perhaps because they still need to find and build their own identities. Many younger participants in this subculture have embraced African and Amazonian tribal patterns as part of their generation’s norms for beauty. This is referred to as a neo-tribal practice and it is widely debated whether or not this is considered cultural appropriation (Foster et. al., 17). Despite criticism, many youth continue to adorn their bodies with neo-tribal patterns and gauged piercings (inspired from lip plates) to form and project their individual identities within their society.
Identities are immensely important in establishing roles and status within a particular society or community. With tattoos and radical piercings, modifiers can create a visual storyboard that shows the world what the modifier wants people to know about them. This also informs the audience of how the modifier wants to interact relationally. For example, plastic surgery and breast modification are more modern and more commoditized versions of extreme body modification. Usually with plastic surgery, the patient is undergoing the procedure in order to look more normal according that society’s beauty standards. This tells us that the modifier wants their audience to view them as more familiar, which means they want to comfortably and seamlessly form relationships because they are striving to fit in through their modifications.
This webpage has examined the relationship between the modifier and their audience and saw how different purposes for modification can shape social relations. Evidently, extreme body modification and symbolic interactionism go hand in hand. After all, modifications help concretize individual and cultural identity. Now this is where the notion of the relationship between private and public comes into play. While private modifications (ex. genital modifications, hidden tattoos/scars, etc.) are a way to facilitate self-expression, public modifications serve as a more public display of rebellion (Romanienko 392). A lot of deliberation goes behind extreme body modifiers’ decisions on what kind of modification to get, where to get it, and how it should appear visually. This idea points us to Cooley’s concept of the looking glass self. While modifications are meant to serve a personal motivation, modifiers still need to consider how their audience physically views their modifications in order to decide how to situate it on their body. With the looking glass self, modifiers are examining their own appearance in regards to their audience, predicting the kind of judgment that is going to come from their audience, and determine their own feelings towards other people’s reactions. In this way, cultural beauty ideals perpetually shape the behaviors of members of the society, since deviance needs a norm to digress from.
