Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Transdermal Implants: Body Art or Nightmare Fuel?
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of five
- 0:03Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
- 0:12Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w. Chuff Bryan over there,
- 0:15Speaker 1: and there's Jerry over there, and she has a doughnut
- 0:18Speaker 1: beneath her skin on her forehead, which makes this stuff
- 0:20Speaker 1: you should know the transdermal implant addition, although technically they'd
- 0:26Speaker 1: be subdermal implant, right, you know, good point, there's a difference.
- 0:30Speaker 1: I'm kind of excited about this, are you. I'm excited too,
- 0:34Speaker 1: because as we record live today, this is the last
- 0:38Speaker 1: UM full length session of the year. We're doing some
- 0:42Speaker 1: shorties tomorrow and then I'm doing movie Crushes tomorrow and
- 0:47Speaker 1: that's it. Man, We're done for Like, if you look
- 0:50Speaker 1: at calendar days, almost three full weeks. You got a
- 0:53Speaker 1: big day tomorrow, don't you. Yeah, I'm recording a lot
- 0:55Speaker 1: of shows. That's a lot of episodes tomorrow, five six
- 0:58Speaker 1: seven episodes tomorrow. So are you sad we're not gonna
- 1:01Speaker 1: be recording for a little while, are you? Like? Yeah, No,
- 1:04Speaker 1: I'm super glad. That's fine. I'm not taking a personally
- 1:07Speaker 1: because I feel the same way now I'm not saying
- 1:09Speaker 1: I hate all the few people, but uh, it's gonna
- 1:12Speaker 1: be breaks are really good. Yeah, we get to charge
- 1:14Speaker 1: us tear the covers off of our textbooks. Yeah, turning
- 1:18Speaker 1: back in for um a substantially less amount than what
- 1:21Speaker 1: we paid for him. Yeah we what we After the
- 1:23Speaker 1: bell rings, we go down the hall throwing all our
- 1:25Speaker 1: papers around and stuff. Yeah, exactly the best. Everyone's like this,
- 1:28Speaker 1: Cooper's playing this is work. Yeah. Uh yeah, No, it's
- 1:32Speaker 1: gonna be a great break and uh means good quality
- 1:37Speaker 1: family holiday time. Uh, not having to research stuff. It's
- 1:41Speaker 1: nice for a few weeks, and then it makes us
- 1:43Speaker 1: eager to get back and start researching stuff again. And
- 1:46Speaker 1: not only that, we get to go on the road
- 1:48Speaker 1: shortly after we get back. That's right, we're gonna baking
- 1:51Speaker 1: in a yeah, shout out, prepare for this. Yeah, we're
- 1:55Speaker 1: doing a show in Seattle the More on January. That
- 1:59Speaker 1: would be the uh, and then we'll be in l
- 2:04Speaker 1: A for the Hurt podcast towards on Friday. No events
- 2:07Speaker 1: other than that because we're in and out. Then Saturday
- 2:11Speaker 1: we're gonna be at sketch Fest the Castro. That's the
- 2:15Speaker 1: live show, brand new stuff. So yeah, it's gonna be
- 2:19Speaker 1: a big jam, that's right. And then I'm doing a
- 2:21Speaker 1: movie crush on the nineteenth. And this year, I'm not
- 2:24Speaker 1: gonna do a single guest talking about a one movie.
- 2:27Speaker 1: I'm gonna mix it up and get the audience involved,
- 2:30Speaker 1: very nice, Gonna have a slate of people on stage,
- 2:34Speaker 1: be wandering around the audience with a microphone. I'm having
- 2:37Speaker 1: a lot of fun. I'm like nervous just thinking about that.
- 2:40Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm not even gonna be in the audience
- 2:42Speaker 1: because I'm not gonna be in town. I'm sorry. But
- 2:45Speaker 1: the idea of being in the audience and you picking me,
- 2:48Speaker 1: Oh no, it's voluntary. You know. I'm not gonna just
- 2:51Speaker 1: stick in someone's face. That's This is the cream of
- 2:54Speaker 1: the crop of stuff. You should know. Lusters, they're not.
- 2:57Speaker 1: They're not these drunk mainers who jump on the mic
- 3:00Speaker 1: and Q and A and going off on Maine. Again.
- 3:03Speaker 1: They're nice, But we had a couple of drunkies at
- 3:05Speaker 1: the end that tried to ruin the show. We totally
- 3:07Speaker 1: did anyway, Yeah, they're fine. Yeah, it happens from time,
- 3:10Speaker 1: and it happens from not in San Francisco or Portland, though,
- 3:13Speaker 1: man they know what's up. Or Seattle, Seattle. Sorry, yeah,
- 3:16Speaker 1: but we're hitting Portland in March. We haven't announced those yet,
- 3:19Speaker 1: but Portland and Vancouver it looks like, yeah, and then
- 3:22Speaker 1: we're debating other various places for yeah, right in, let
- 3:26Speaker 1: us know where to go. Yeah, okay, So off to
- 3:29Speaker 1: transdermal implants, Charles. Yeah, this is one kind of an
- 3:33Speaker 1: extreme body modification. And I want to go ahead and
- 3:36Speaker 1: say right off the bat, we don't like to yuck
- 3:38Speaker 1: people's yums um. We're gonna I'm gonna do this as
- 3:42Speaker 1: straightforward as I can. But it is hard and some
- 3:45Speaker 1: of these circumstances two uh, to not recoil in horror
- 3:53Speaker 1: at what you're seeing. But the reason I feel like
- 3:55Speaker 1: I can say that is I think that's kind of
- 3:57Speaker 1: the point, right for a lot of these folks because
- 4:00Speaker 1: they want to. They want to sometimes scare your average
- 4:05Speaker 1: square walking down the street, you know, your l seven. Yeah,
- 4:09Speaker 1: otherwise they wouldn't every picture wouldn't be them going right
- 4:13Speaker 1: right in the camera lens. A lot of them do that.
- 4:14Speaker 1: They're inciting a reaction, and I get it. It's fine,
- 4:17Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, they're they're freaking out the normies. Basically
- 4:22Speaker 1: not all of them I was reading. I actually looked
- 4:24Speaker 1: up psychology of body modification. It's interesting, And this person wrote,
- 4:29Speaker 1: I think it was from a tattoo place for a
- 4:30Speaker 1: piercing place. And they're like, despite what most you know,
- 4:34Speaker 1: average people think, there's not some sort of psychological defect
- 4:38Speaker 1: driving people to do this stuff, but there is some
- 4:41Speaker 1: psychology to it, and frequently the most common explanation for
- 4:45Speaker 1: doing this a self expression. Yeah sure, I can't really
- 4:47Speaker 1: fault anybody for that. Sometimes it's kind of like to
- 4:50Speaker 1: show your affiliation with the tribe or something like that,
- 4:53Speaker 1: like if you're a grinder, which we'll get into, or
- 4:56Speaker 1: a raver or a goth yeah, or a mook mook
- 5:00Speaker 1: or posse boom. You sound a million years old right now.
- 5:05Speaker 1: And then let's see what's the last one. Oh, sexual enhancement. Also,
- 5:09Speaker 1: can't fault anybody for that one. Yeah, well, we'll talk
- 5:12Speaker 1: about some of those two. So I I but I
- 5:15Speaker 1: don't want to leave you high and dry here, because
- 5:17Speaker 1: like I don't. I don't have any issues with anybody
- 5:21Speaker 1: doing whatever to their own body for whatever reason. Um
- 5:26Speaker 1: sort of like serious might all illness, And I mean
- 5:28Speaker 1: I think that does come up, but it's very very rare. Um,
- 5:32Speaker 1: but I do. If you look at pictures of the
- 5:37Speaker 1: after or the during, sure it can make one a
- 5:41Speaker 1: little fainty. Is that what you mean? Yeah, I mean
- 5:44Speaker 1: we're curious people like if I ever sat down across
- 5:46Speaker 1: from someone with a split tongue and elf ears and
- 5:51Speaker 1: things like that and say, hey, you know, what's what's
- 5:54Speaker 1: going on with that? Let's say you say, how about
- 5:56Speaker 1: them cubbies that's big baseball fans, right, No, I'd want
- 6:01Speaker 1: to pick their brain a little bit, and and the
- 6:03Speaker 1: likely response, like you said, would be, it's just self expression. Man,
- 6:07Speaker 1: this is just how I feel I want to project myself.
- 6:10Speaker 1: He's like, you want to project as a to be
- 6:12Speaker 1: old bearded guy. Yeah, you're gross. So we're just kind
- 6:16Speaker 1: of we're dropping in on a subculture that we're not
- 6:18Speaker 1: affiliated with in any way ship perform but we're also
- 6:21Speaker 1: this is until like paradeum around um and been pointing
- 6:25Speaker 1: gawk and Latin. So if you if you're here for that,
- 6:28Speaker 1: move along, that's right. Okay, alright, boy, these are weirdos kidding.
- 6:34Speaker 1: So we're talking specifically about transdermal implants, which we'll get to,
- 6:38Speaker 1: but those are a I think you said, an extreme
- 6:42Speaker 1: form of body modification. Yeah, E, B and yeah E.
- 6:46Speaker 1: It's very important. This is not to be confused with
- 6:48Speaker 1: the mountain dew version of extreme. There's an E at
- 6:51Speaker 1: the beginning of that word, which legitimizes the whole thing tremendously.
- 6:55Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. You were a child of
- 6:57Speaker 1: the nineties, You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, even
- 6:59Speaker 1: though I've never had a mount and do what never?
- 7:03Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever tasted mountain dew? What about
- 7:05Speaker 1: mellow yellow? I think I might have had a couple
- 7:08Speaker 1: of those when I was a kid. Okay, well, then
- 7:10Speaker 1: you're fine. You're covered about the same virtually the same thing.
- 7:12Speaker 1: Although mountain dew is branched out. They have some new
- 7:16Speaker 1: freaky stuff. They got all kinds of colors and flavors. Now,
- 7:20Speaker 1: so there's one that's blue that you me accidentally got
- 7:23Speaker 1: from a vending machine the other day and brought home
- 7:26Speaker 1: and I was like, I can't touch this, but I'll
- 7:27Speaker 1: bet you'd like to drink blue stuff. This is the
- 7:30Speaker 1: epitome of blue stuff that you shouldn't drink. But it's
- 7:34Speaker 1: like highly addictive. The taste is like Oh, it's awful.
- 7:38Speaker 1: I want another sip. That's so weird. But it's a
- 7:41Speaker 1: very addictive cotton candyish taste with a little bit of
- 7:46Speaker 1: blue raspberry mix and I'm not sure what it is,
- 7:48Speaker 1: but it's my brain is still like quivering from it.
- 7:51Speaker 1: And this is like a week ago. I don't know
- 7:53Speaker 1: what a blue raspberry is, so I'm already confused, but
- 7:55Speaker 1: I really you gotta think, Chuck. There are people who
- 7:57Speaker 1: do engage in transdermal iplain listening to this and they're like,
- 8:01Speaker 1: these guys are talking about the wildest experience they've had recently,
- 8:05Speaker 1: and it was Blue Mountain. Yeah, that's how. That's where.
- 8:09Speaker 1: This is our stage in life that we're in. Ye,
- 8:11Speaker 1: that's fine, I'm comfortable with that, Okay. So it's an
- 8:14Speaker 1: extreme foreign body modification, which is a larger umbrella that
- 8:19Speaker 1: covers a lot of different stuff and some stuff that's
- 8:21Speaker 1: been around a really long time, like tattooing, piercing, gauging. Yeah,
- 8:26Speaker 1: so you know it gauging like it's there's like a
- 8:28Speaker 1: hole in your ear and you can make it pretty
- 8:30Speaker 1: pretty big. That's actually, you know, a traditional custom that
- 8:34Speaker 1: dates back a very long time in our pal Letsie
- 8:37Speaker 1: apparently had zero gauge years really, Yeah, he was from
- 8:41Speaker 1: what five thousands something years before. Yeah, and I've also
- 8:44Speaker 1: seen it in the lip Yeah, the cultures that have
- 8:47Speaker 1: the disc inserted in the lip um. So, yeah, this
- 8:51Speaker 1: is something that is it is very important to point
- 8:53Speaker 1: out that it is our Western culture. To us, it's like, oh,
- 8:58Speaker 1: this new thing that these kids are doing, but for tattoos,
- 9:02Speaker 1: like for thousands of years other cultures across the world
- 9:05Speaker 1: have done similar things like that, right, And that also
- 9:08Speaker 1: raises a really important point to um. Body modification can
- 9:11Speaker 1: also include something like a pierced ear or a nose job,
- 9:15Speaker 1: or getting an eyelid job and a little nippit or tuck. Sure,
- 9:20Speaker 1: and these are typically people modifying their body to reach
- 9:25Speaker 1: h some sort of ideal of social ideal of beauty,
- 9:29Speaker 1: a norm of beauty that they feel like they don't
- 9:31Speaker 1: have naturally. So they're modifying their bodies with extreme body
- 9:35Speaker 1: modification like trans germal implants. It's the intention is to
- 9:40Speaker 1: go the other way, but it's still like on the
- 9:43Speaker 1: same coin, it's just a different side of that same coin. Right.
- 9:46Speaker 1: It's a beautiful thing to them, but I think they
- 9:49Speaker 1: realize that it's going to freak out the normy. That's right.
- 9:52Speaker 1: So it's win win, Yeah, it is, um. So there.
- 9:55Speaker 1: You know, we're not going to get into all these
- 9:57Speaker 1: because this is mainly on uh, these instrumal implants, but
- 10:01Speaker 1: we do need to mention things like beating. Um, we've
- 10:06Speaker 1: talked about the tongue splitting. Do you know what beating is? Yeah,
- 10:10Speaker 1: go ahead, Oh you're gonna lay it on me. I
- 10:13Speaker 1: was trying to lay it on you. So that's hell fair. Um.
- 10:15Speaker 1: Beating or genital beating or pearling is inserting like a
- 10:20Speaker 1: bead or something beneath the skin or on the top
- 10:23Speaker 1: of the skin, or somewhere under the skin on the penis.
- 10:27Speaker 1: And that is a million percent for sexual enhancement, for
- 10:32Speaker 1: her pleasure terms you know what they used to say.
- 10:35Speaker 1: That's what it's said on the bathroom wall of the
- 10:38Speaker 1: gas station. No, it was like ribbed, Yeah, for her pleasure.
- 10:43Speaker 1: They also have ribs instead of pearls, but so like
- 10:47Speaker 1: a ribbed penis. But those are subdermal implants. They're they're
- 10:52Speaker 1: meant to be under the skin. They're not supposed to
- 10:54Speaker 1: break the skin. Again of the genitals. That it's true,
- 11:00Speaker 1: which what the tongue splitting. Apparently there's one form of
- 11:04Speaker 1: tongue tongue splitting you can do where you have movement
- 11:07Speaker 1: over both sides. Oh no, like independently. I think. So
- 11:12Speaker 1: that's pretty I haven't seen it in action, like on YouTube,
- 11:14Speaker 1: but I read that a couple of hours ago, and
- 11:18Speaker 1: I did not go to YouTube on purpose. Right, Yeah,
- 11:21Speaker 1: I've suffered quite a bit the last couple of days
- 11:24Speaker 1: from my curiosity getting the best of me. And then
- 11:27Speaker 1: there's the subdermal implant like you were talking about, which
- 11:31Speaker 1: is different. If you've ever seen anyone that looks like
- 11:34Speaker 1: they are what what are the Star Trek? Is it
- 11:38Speaker 1: a cling on that has the big puffy I'm not
- 11:42Speaker 1: a Star Trek guy, so um, but whichever one's have
- 11:46Speaker 1: the very prominent brow. A lot of times, these subdermal
- 11:49Speaker 1: implants can look like that is something under the skin. Um,
- 11:53Speaker 1: that's a shape of something like I saw actually saw
- 11:56Speaker 1: pretty cool and on the top of a guy's hand
- 12:00Speaker 1: he had a skull under his skin. Yeah. I was like,
- 12:05Speaker 1: that's kind of awesome. It seems like transdermal implants. There
- 12:09Speaker 1: were subdermal implants first, and then transdermal implants kind of
- 12:12Speaker 1: made a splash, and then everybody's like, this is too dangerous.
- 12:15Speaker 1: Let's go back to subdermal implants. And now those are
- 12:18Speaker 1: a big time thing, and apparently the success rate for
- 12:21Speaker 1: him is much greater. And um, they're meant to just be,
- 12:24Speaker 1: like you were saying, completely under his skin. And they
- 12:26Speaker 1: come in all these different sizes and shapes, and um,
- 12:29Speaker 1: the sizes in particular are meant to just kind of
- 12:31Speaker 1: slowly stretch the skin like you do when you gauge
- 12:34Speaker 1: your ears. You can go bigger and bigger, right, Um,
- 12:37Speaker 1: So you just put one in and let your skin
- 12:39Speaker 1: kind of loosen up around it. And underneath the skin
- 12:41Speaker 1: there's that shape of what you say a skull, saying skulls,
- 12:44Speaker 1: hand grenades, throwing stars which may or may not have
- 12:48Speaker 1: just been regular stars with pointy edges. Um hearts, music notes,
- 12:52Speaker 1: cherries like whatever, and you can put them anywhere on
- 12:55Speaker 1: your body and it's just like that shape protruding from
- 12:58Speaker 1: underneath your skin. Or the most famous one of one
- 13:01Speaker 1: I saw, I think first, because I think the kid
- 13:04Speaker 1: who did it was an early adopter. That doughnut shape
- 13:07Speaker 1: on the forehead, which I'm not sure what that if.
- 13:10Speaker 1: It's just aesthetic or if there's some sort of symbolism
- 13:14Speaker 1: behind it or not. But it is a It is
- 13:16Speaker 1: a definite look. It's not like Dr Manhattan, is it.
- 13:19Speaker 1: I don't know who that is. Is that like a
- 13:22Speaker 1: seventies disco group? No, it's the Watchman character from The Watchman.
- 13:27Speaker 1: What did he novel? Slash movie? Slash? Now? He had
- 13:30Speaker 1: like a glowing thing underneath his skin right now? He
- 13:33Speaker 1: had it was on his forehead. He had a circle,
- 13:36Speaker 1: but it was glowing. Uh No, No, I didn't glow.
- 13:40Speaker 1: I mean he could blow sometimes. Okay, maybe that's why
- 13:42Speaker 1: I'm confusing it with but there are now subdermal implants
- 13:45Speaker 1: that have led lights, so that not only is your
- 13:48Speaker 1: skin this shape protruding, it also lights up. Did you
- 13:52Speaker 1: see that thing about people having magnets put in their fingers.
- 13:54Speaker 1: Let's talk about that for a second. All right, people
- 13:57Speaker 1: have magnets in their fingers sometimes. Yeah, Shannon Larrett was
- 14:01Speaker 1: is like kind of a huge extreme body mod artist um,
- 14:06Speaker 1: which is something we should say. The people who implant
- 14:10Speaker 1: this stuff are called artists. The people who have it
- 14:12Speaker 1: done to them are also called artists typically too. It's
- 14:15Speaker 1: kind of like art I do the art and I
- 14:17Speaker 1: and the art. But don't call me a doctor, especially
- 14:22Speaker 1: not Dr Manhtan, but um Shannon Larrett was an early
- 14:25Speaker 1: adopter of magnet fingertips, but it didn't work out all
- 14:29Speaker 1: that well because of the way that they were produced. Yeah,
- 14:31Speaker 1: that is called sensory augmentation. And the idea here as
- 14:35Speaker 1: you put a tiny magnet in your fingertip, and you
- 14:38Speaker 1: would you can sense things like magnetic fields. I mean,
- 14:42Speaker 1: you become a magnet. You know, at least the tip
- 14:44Speaker 1: your finger. Does you like, check out this paper clip
- 14:47Speaker 1: now it's attached to my finger. What are you gonna do?
- 14:49Speaker 1: Nor me? Well, it said there were some funny things
- 14:51Speaker 1: in this. I got a couple of articles on this.
- 14:53Speaker 1: One of them was what you need to know about
- 14:57Speaker 1: getting magnetic finger implants by George vorts Skey George Dvorski.
- 15:01Speaker 1: Yeah you know him. Oh yeah, he's from He's a
- 15:04Speaker 1: huge I O nine writer. Okay. So one of the
- 15:07Speaker 1: things that said it could be useful if you work
- 15:09Speaker 1: in electronics. You can feel the live wires versus the
- 15:12Speaker 1: dead wires. And I'm just thinking, like they have devices
- 15:15Speaker 1: that do that, you know. And then they listed a
- 15:17Speaker 1: few other things and finally said, you can also do
- 15:20Speaker 1: things like pick up bobble caps and paper clips. It's
- 15:22Speaker 1: pretty neat, but it's an early UM example, or I
- 15:26Speaker 1: should say, primitive example of bio hacking, which is like
- 15:30Speaker 1: trying to do things. It's kind of like a part
- 15:32Speaker 1: of the trans humanism umbrella where it's like it's like
- 15:36Speaker 1: Stellarc with the ear. I knew that was coming. Okay,
- 15:38Speaker 1: of course, he's like our go to poster child for
- 15:41Speaker 1: trans humanism. So this is actually following through on bio
- 15:47Speaker 1: hacking with your own body. And there's an actually name
- 15:50Speaker 1: for that community, that very specific set of people who
- 15:53Speaker 1: are actually doing this stuff, and they're called grinders. Yeah,
- 15:56Speaker 1: and that's like a magnet or an r f I
- 15:58Speaker 1: D chips or something like where you can, like, if
- 16:00Speaker 1: you really know you're gonna be working at the same
- 16:02Speaker 1: office for a while, you might have that your RFI
- 16:06Speaker 1: D card implanted into the top of your hand and
- 16:09Speaker 1: you just swipe your hand and freak out your normy
- 16:11Speaker 1: co workers. Yeah. This one guy from Wired, and he
- 16:15Speaker 1: wasn't even listed as the author, maybe because he just
- 16:18Speaker 1: wanted to remain anonymous or she um and this person
- 16:23Speaker 1: got the magnet done as an experiment for the article
- 16:27Speaker 1: what and it said. Four months after, uh, the thing
- 16:30Speaker 1: basically eventually he tried to get it taken out by
- 16:33Speaker 1: his family doctor. He said. My family doctor tried to
- 16:36Speaker 1: remove it and failed. The implant shattered into pieces, and
- 16:40Speaker 1: it no longer worked as a magnet, he said. But
- 16:42Speaker 1: four months later I lost all the effect. The spot
- 16:46Speaker 1: darkened and the magnetism returned because the magnet, being a magnet,
- 16:51Speaker 1: had reassembled itself in my finger. Wow, that's awesome. Isn't
- 16:55Speaker 1: that amazing? And it reassembled itself into a skull and crossbones.
- 16:59Speaker 1: I don't know, he said. It wasn't as sensitive, but
- 17:02Speaker 1: he could pick up bottle caps. That's pretty sure, which
- 17:05Speaker 1: is ultimately the point, you know. Yeah, it's all very interesting. Um. Yeah,
- 17:09Speaker 1: and I know we're laughing a lot and stuff, but
- 17:11Speaker 1: it is. It is unusual. So forgive us if you're
- 17:15Speaker 1: out there and you have a magnet in your finger
- 17:18Speaker 1: and you're offended by us. Yeah, go list into some
- 17:20Speaker 1: other episodes of stuff you should know and you'll you'll
- 17:22Speaker 1: catch our vibe. Yeah, you'll know we're not laughing at you.
- 17:24Speaker 1: All right, Should we take a break? All right, let's
- 17:26Speaker 1: do that let's get some magnets and planet in our
- 17:29Speaker 1: pinkies and uh, we'll be right back. Chock chock stop.
- 18:03Speaker 1: You know. One of the things I saw about having
- 18:05Speaker 1: magnets implanted in your in your fingers, and actually any
- 18:08Speaker 1: kind of implant that involves metal and an m R,
- 18:13Speaker 1: I is a terrible idea. I saw that, And sometimes
- 18:17Speaker 1: you might need an m R. It's medically necessary. It
- 18:19Speaker 1: will pull it out of your body. Oh my god.
- 18:22Speaker 1: And they I saw two different things. I saw one
- 18:25Speaker 1: article where a guy said that you need to let
- 18:28Speaker 1: them know so they can account for this, and I
- 18:30Speaker 1: saw another one where they said, no, they won't let
- 18:33Speaker 1: you do this. Um. So I don't know if accounting
- 18:36Speaker 1: for it means like hanging your hand out the side
- 18:38Speaker 1: or which is not possible. I think maybe temporarily amputating
- 18:43Speaker 1: your hands and when you throw the m R and
- 18:45Speaker 1: then reattaching them and hoping for the best. That sounds
- 18:47Speaker 1: like something out of a movie though, ripping a magnet
- 18:49Speaker 1: out of your finger and really, oh my god. So
- 18:52Speaker 1: everything we've talked about basically up to this point has
- 18:55Speaker 1: been subdermal implants, which are completely under the skin. They
- 19:00Speaker 1: either used for like bio hacking or just for a
- 19:03Speaker 1: dormant there's something else. Then this is what we're actually
- 19:07Speaker 1: talking about today. Those are Those are called transdermal implants,
- 19:14Speaker 1: and they bear a striking resemblance of subdermal except they
- 19:17Speaker 1: are even more extreme body modifications because they're implanted under
- 19:22Speaker 1: the skin, but they also protrude out of the skin,
- 19:25Speaker 1: which means they break the body envelope, which makes them
- 19:29Speaker 1: extremely risky as far as this whole thing is concerned. Yeah,
- 19:32Speaker 1: and I've heard it. It's also called single point. Um,
- 19:35Speaker 1: there's another name for it. I've seen those for microdermals really, yeah,
- 19:40Speaker 1: which we'll get to. Yeah, because yeah, it definitely wouldn't
- 19:43Speaker 1: be single point because there's the second point that they make.
- 19:47Speaker 1: I think, So, yeah, I think single point is. We'll
- 19:51Speaker 1: talk about it with microdermals, all right. So the idea
- 19:54Speaker 1: of the implant though, is, um, if you imagine permanent
- 19:59Speaker 1: jewelry maybe or if you look online, the first thing
- 20:03Speaker 1: that you will likely see is someone with a shaved
- 20:05Speaker 1: head and little horns or spikes or um any kind
- 20:11Speaker 1: of adornment coming out of the head. But this guy,
- 20:15Speaker 1: what was his first name, Mr al Ward? His first name,
- 20:20Speaker 1: Chuck was Joe Joe, right, he was one of it
- 20:25Speaker 1: seems like the first people, if not the who got
- 20:28Speaker 1: this done in X from Yeah, and Hayworth seems to
- 20:32Speaker 1: be still a very prominent body modification artist. He's called
- 20:37Speaker 1: the mod Father. Okay, well there you have those subdermal implants. Um.
- 20:42Speaker 1: He designs and sells him like crazy made out of silicon. Yeah,
- 20:46Speaker 1: because he worked in medical tool engineering, which we're not
- 20:50Speaker 1: saying that's you know, a qualification. Oh, it definitely wasn't this,
- 20:53Speaker 1: but it probably helped. Oh yeah, you know. No, No,
- 20:56Speaker 1: this guy basically he grew up in his father's company.
- 20:59Speaker 1: His father created cosmetic surgery tools, and Steve joined the
- 21:04Speaker 1: family company and he made cosmetic surgery tools. Um. It
- 21:08Speaker 1: was very successful at it, first with his father's company
- 21:11Speaker 1: and then later with his own company. Um. But he
- 21:14Speaker 1: also said, well, you know, this is kind of a
- 21:16Speaker 1: cool idea to using this stuff for body modification. So
- 21:20Speaker 1: not only did he invent, design and create these tools
- 21:24Speaker 1: that are used for this stuff, he also invented the
- 21:26Speaker 1: procedures and he also invented the implants. So he was
- 21:31Speaker 1: he created this truly is the mod Father. Yeah, and
- 21:34Speaker 1: you know it's not always a metal mohawk of spikes
- 21:37Speaker 1: or anything. We should talk a little bit about a
- 21:41Speaker 1: gentleman named Dennis Avner who is no longer with us.
- 21:45Speaker 1: If you have ever poked around this community, then you
- 21:48Speaker 1: know who Dennis Abner was. He was known as Stalking Cat, yes,
- 21:53Speaker 1: stalking Cat, or just the tiger or Catman or Tigris
- 21:57Speaker 1: or Catman. Yeah. He was a veteran of U. S. Navy.
- 22:00Speaker 1: And this was from his obituary written by Shannon Lauret
- 22:04Speaker 1: from mod blog. From the mod blog. And he worked
- 22:10Speaker 1: as a programmer and a technician, and he had his
- 22:15Speaker 1: totem was was a tiger and a female tiger. He
- 22:19Speaker 1: was a Huron Native American of the Huron tribe. So
- 22:23Speaker 1: he was actually Okay, that's what I couldn't find out
- 22:26Speaker 1: definitely if he just followed along that tradition or if
- 22:29Speaker 1: he actually was he was an actual Huron. Okay. So
- 22:33Speaker 1: he also had um implants and things above his lip
- 22:37Speaker 1: to uh kind of puff it out like a cat.
- 22:40Speaker 1: He had metal whiskers. Yeah, he had um ah, his
- 22:45Speaker 1: his upper lips surgically subvered to make it more cat like.
- 22:49Speaker 1: What's that called? I can't remember. Something acted me though, Yeah,
- 22:51Speaker 1: I'll tell you that how it ends. It ends with ectomy.
- 22:55Speaker 1: So yeah, his ears, his nose, his lips, he had
- 22:58Speaker 1: fangs and just like you know you've seen the little
- 23:01Speaker 1: vampire fangs like these looked like a legit cat. From
- 23:05Speaker 1: what I saw, he and maybe he did both, but
- 23:08Speaker 1: he did he engaged in tooth filing to give himself fangs.
- 23:11Speaker 1: I also saw that he had his um his adult
- 23:13Speaker 1: teeth removed, and he had um fang in dentures. Implanet
- 23:19Speaker 1: well they had to be because he's were super long, right,
- 23:21Speaker 1: So I wonder if he did teeth filing at first
- 23:24Speaker 1: and it didn't suit his needs, and then he followed
- 23:26Speaker 1: up with the dentures. But he was doing all this
- 23:29Speaker 1: and face tattoos. We should mention extensive facial tattoos like
- 23:32Speaker 1: tiger stripes, right, and he looked like a tiger. Like
- 23:35Speaker 1: if you're like, look at that guy, what do you
- 23:37Speaker 1: think he looks like? Anyone would say a tiger. He
- 23:39Speaker 1: nailed it in that respect, but he was still in
- 23:42Speaker 1: the process of he said, I saw two different things.
- 23:45Speaker 1: One that he was trying to um emulate the perfect
- 23:49Speaker 1: balance between a human and a cat a tiger, and
- 23:53Speaker 1: he wanted to become the synthesis of those two things.
- 23:56Speaker 1: Another was that he was just trying to become a cat.
- 23:59Speaker 1: They was working being surgically altered so that he would
- 24:01Speaker 1: have to walk on all fours and that it would
- 24:04Speaker 1: be comfortable for him. Just like ultimately that was his
- 24:06Speaker 1: end goal either way. Um, he died by suicide before
- 24:10Speaker 1: he reached his goal. Um, but this was like his
- 24:13Speaker 1: life's passion. This is what he did. This is he
- 24:16Speaker 1: worked so that he could make money, and he repaired computers,
- 24:19Speaker 1: and then he took his money and gave it to
- 24:21Speaker 1: underground surgeons to carry out these these procedures or body
- 24:24Speaker 1: modification artists to carry out these procedures on him. That's right.
- 24:27Speaker 1: I think the one quote I saw was it's brought
- 24:30Speaker 1: me fame but not fortune, right, and he he liked
- 24:33Speaker 1: the fame. If you look at the pictures of him,
- 24:35Speaker 1: he's hamming it up at the Ripley's Believe it or
- 24:38Speaker 1: not opening and things like that, Like he really enjoyed
- 24:41Speaker 1: being in this, this this spotlight like this. Yeah, it
- 24:44Speaker 1: looked like he stepped off the Broadway stage from Cats, sure,
- 24:48Speaker 1: except it was real. I'll bet he had lifetime free
- 24:50Speaker 1: admission to Cats. And I was like, I can't believe
- 24:52Speaker 1: it actually closed. I was just liking it after the
- 24:56Speaker 1: thousandth time. Have you ever seen cats? Yeah, that's I'm
- 25:00Speaker 1: ragging on it. It's terrible, really, it's the worst. I mean,
- 25:04Speaker 1: I've heard things like that, but I've also heard people
- 25:06Speaker 1: that are so excited about do not trust those people.
- 25:09Speaker 1: So I think a good life model, no, a good
- 25:12Speaker 1: life motto is, don't trust anyone who says they like
- 25:15Speaker 1: the show Cats. Okay, but anyway, one of the from
- 25:19Speaker 1: a former cast member, and one of the things about
- 25:22Speaker 1: Yeah Rum, Tom Tugger and the Traveling cast that one
- 25:25Speaker 1: of the names, Yeah, I think that's the only one
- 25:28Speaker 1: I can remember. Um. The one of the things that
- 25:31Speaker 1: we should say about um Stalking Cat is that in
- 25:36Speaker 1: the body modification community is widely considered to have suffered
- 25:40Speaker 1: from a serious mental disorder like body dysmorphic disorder or
- 25:44Speaker 1: something like that. That that he was the most extreme version.
- 25:49Speaker 1: Even though he gets lumped together with all people who
- 25:53Speaker 1: engage in extreme body modification, he was an outlier, and
- 25:57Speaker 1: that he probably did suffer from a mental tried. So
- 26:02Speaker 1: back to the implants, Um, they're their anchors under the skin,
- 26:08Speaker 1: like we talked about are we talking about how they
- 26:10Speaker 1: do these? Yeah, and kind of what they are and
- 26:12Speaker 1: how they do it. But these anchors, it seems like nowadays,
- 26:16Speaker 1: are mainly clover or figure eight shaped. That's what I
- 26:20Speaker 1: saw in that thing you said, although it did see
- 26:22Speaker 1: that they could be round or circular. Round in circular
- 26:25Speaker 1: this is the same thing. Or rectangular. Uh, there can
- 26:29Speaker 1: be custom made. They're made from what's called implant grade
- 26:33Speaker 1: titanium or tephlon, yeah, or silicone. Right. I don't know
- 26:39Speaker 1: how they could be silicone. I don't either, because it
- 26:41Speaker 1: seems it could be wobbly. That seems like more of
- 26:43Speaker 1: a subdormal thing, but maybe not. The key is this,
- 26:45Speaker 1: chuck um whatever you're the post or the the um,
- 26:51Speaker 1: the anchor, the anchor of the implant is it has
- 26:54Speaker 1: to have gaps holes in it. And the reason why
- 26:57Speaker 1: is because scar tissue is supposed to grow in these
- 27:02Speaker 1: holes and really cement that anchor into your skin. It
- 27:06Speaker 1: embeds it, not an anchor if it's not anchored exactly. Yeah,
- 27:09Speaker 1: I mean that's the whole point is that it's not
- 27:11Speaker 1: slipping around in your head or wherever you have it,
- 27:14Speaker 1: and it is stuck there um, and it's protruding through
- 27:18Speaker 1: the skin via the post that's part of the anchor
- 27:21Speaker 1: that's sticking out of your skin. Yeah, so anything anytime
- 27:24Speaker 1: you see a little devil's horn or whatever that is
- 27:26Speaker 1: screwed on, and they can just screw that thing off
- 27:28Speaker 1: and screw on a Homer Simpson head, that's what I
- 27:32Speaker 1: want to see. Sure, that would be good Homer Simpson
- 27:35Speaker 1: head like dr klong from from a fistful of Yen
- 27:42Speaker 1: from the Kentucky Fried movie. I don't remember that he um,
- 27:45Speaker 1: he had a prosthetic arm and he could, like her hand,
- 27:49Speaker 1: he could unscrew it and put on things like a flamethrower,
- 27:52Speaker 1: like a spear gun or something like that. You've seen
- 27:55Speaker 1: Kentucky Fried movie. I have. It's been a long time, though,
- 27:57Speaker 1: it's time you saw it again. Yeah, it's it's even
- 28:01Speaker 1: more juvenile than you remember. But it is just fantastic,
- 28:04Speaker 1: more juvenile than when I was twelve. And what that's amazing.
- 28:08Speaker 1: I've seen it and like, yeah, because when you're twelve,
- 28:09Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this is how grown ups think. I
- 28:12Speaker 1: can't wait to be a grown up. And you become
- 28:13Speaker 1: a grown up, you're like, no, it's just the Zucker brothers. Right. Uh,
- 28:17Speaker 1: so there is some controversy around all this, and um,
- 28:20Speaker 1: I looked up the legalities and from what I saw, like,
- 28:24Speaker 1: if you're a tattoo piercing place, you have definitely been
- 28:28Speaker 1: certified and you have your operating license and all that
- 28:32Speaker 1: good stuff. Probably have an autoclave to sterilize everything. Probably so. Um.
- 28:37Speaker 1: But if you're if you live in a basement though,
- 28:39Speaker 1: that's a different story. Well, what I saw was the
- 28:43Speaker 1: courts have still and this was from an article from
- 28:45Speaker 1: last year, the courts still have not been asked to
- 28:48Speaker 1: rule on extreme body modification because the question is is
- 28:53Speaker 1: does this qualify as surgery or is it like piercing?
- 28:56Speaker 1: Is it the same thing as piercing their scalpels, their sutures. Yeah,
- 28:59Speaker 1: from what I've seen, everybody in the body modification communities like, no,
- 29:03Speaker 1: that's that's surgery, right, Like it's it's pure and simple.
- 29:06Speaker 1: It's a type of cosmetic surgery. The reason why it
- 29:09Speaker 1: seems questionable is because every other cosmetic surgery you've heard
- 29:14Speaker 1: of is towards this beauty, this norm of of like
- 29:18Speaker 1: a norm western norm, right, Um, Whereas this is the
- 29:21Speaker 1: opposite way. So people are like, wait, what are you doing?
- 29:23Speaker 1: And you do this in a in a tattoo place
- 29:25Speaker 1: or a piercing place, but not being coerced, right, but
- 29:28Speaker 1: it's still it's still surgery. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So should
- 29:33Speaker 1: we go through the process. I woke up excited about
- 29:37Speaker 1: this part today. I can't wait. We'll kick it off then. Okay,
- 29:41Speaker 1: all right, I'm Chuck. I would like a I would
- 29:45Speaker 1: like uh hand, multiple hands giving high fives to each
- 29:49Speaker 1: other down the center of my head. More. Welcome in, Chuck,
- 29:53Speaker 1: have a seat. I'm a body modification artist or what
- 29:57Speaker 1: you think ones is like? Alright, and you like it, right,
- 30:03Speaker 1: I'm kidding, Chuck, I'm just teasing. Okay, let me take
- 30:06Speaker 1: that again. Oh well, please come in. I have a seat.
- 30:09Speaker 1: Care for some local anesthetic. It's illegal, but I want
- 30:12Speaker 1: you to have it if you want it. Yeah, I
- 30:14Speaker 1: mean there could be some local anesthetic or there could
- 30:17Speaker 1: just be ice. Are you breaking the fourth wall right now?
- 30:21Speaker 1: I've heard sometimes there's just ice. Yeah, it could be,
- 30:25Speaker 1: which is really saying something because people like you in
- 30:28Speaker 1: the extreme body modification community endure a tremendous amount of
- 30:32Speaker 1: pain in doing this procedure that we're about to describe
- 30:35Speaker 1: to one another, even though you're my customer. Alright, so
- 30:39Speaker 1: what happens next? Wait? Wait, sorry and seen? All right?
- 30:43Speaker 1: Can we go back to normal? Yeah? Alright, good? Um,
- 30:47Speaker 1: So what happens next? It's actually very straightforward, it really is.
- 30:52Speaker 1: So the the um artist, body modification artist slash Underground
- 30:56Speaker 1: Surgeon will um make two. So they'll they'll you'll say,
- 31:01Speaker 1: I want a metal mohawk, which is a bunch of
- 31:03Speaker 1: spikes coming out of like the top of your head,
- 31:05Speaker 1: about where your forehead ends. She didn't like my idea
- 31:07Speaker 1: about the hands high fiving. That's all the hands high fiving.
- 31:09Speaker 1: I'm sorry whatever, So, um, how many do you want?
- 31:13Speaker 1: You want? Like, so you've got one hand coming out
- 31:15Speaker 1: in another hand coming out, so you have two. I
- 31:18Speaker 1: want them all in a row. So I want four
- 31:21Speaker 1: sets of two hands. So that's that's eight total hands
- 31:23Speaker 1: facing each other. Okay, So I'm gonna figure out and
- 31:26Speaker 1: show you where I think they should go. I mean
- 31:28Speaker 1: I do that by using like a sharpie and marking
- 31:30Speaker 1: those spots, and you'll say, yes, that's perfect. I've got
- 31:33Speaker 1: eight dots on my head right now. I think that's
- 31:35Speaker 1: great placement for these hands. And then on each side
- 31:39Speaker 1: of those dots where those implants are going to be.
- 31:42Speaker 1: I'm going to measure off about an inch, about two
- 31:44Speaker 1: and a half centimeters, and make another mark. And that
- 31:48Speaker 1: mark is where the actual incision goes, and in each
- 31:51Speaker 1: of those eight spots, And again, chuck, bear in mind
- 31:54Speaker 1: you have had maybe some ice. You turned down the
- 31:56Speaker 1: anesthetic because you're super legal. Right, Um, you're going to
- 32:01Speaker 1: feel a scalpel make a slit in your head eight
- 32:06Speaker 1: different times about an inch away from where those implants are. Right,
- 32:10Speaker 1: that's step one. That's that's going to be like a
- 32:13Speaker 1: drive around Paradise Island compared to what's coming next as
- 32:16Speaker 1: far as pain goes. Yeah, I mean that sounds bad enough.
- 32:19Speaker 1: But then what needs to happen because remember your skin
- 32:23Speaker 1: likes being very close to your head. Yeah, it's not
- 32:26Speaker 1: loosey goosey. It's not lucy goosey, but you need to
- 32:28Speaker 1: make it a little bit loosey goosey because you gotta
- 32:30Speaker 1: slide that anchor over from your incision point to its
- 32:34Speaker 1: final destination, right, which is why you have to place
- 32:38Speaker 1: two points marked off the place where the implants coming
- 32:41Speaker 1: in the place where the incision is. So how do
- 32:42Speaker 1: you separate the skin. Then you separate it with a
- 32:45Speaker 1: little tool, uh, sort of like a tiny little spatchel.
- 32:48Speaker 1: Invented by Steve Hayworth. Did he invent this? I thought
- 32:53Speaker 1: this guy is legit, dude. I'm not saying he's not,
- 32:55Speaker 1: but I thought it was. All had been long used
- 32:56Speaker 1: in plastic surgery, and from what I saw he invented
- 33:00Speaker 1: the the dermal elevator. Okay, well, it's a dermal elevator.
- 33:04Speaker 1: It's a it's a little metal thing that you insert
- 33:07Speaker 1: and you use it as a little pry bar. Basically,
- 33:09Speaker 1: it's like a spatch, a little to pry the skin
- 33:12Speaker 1: up from your head. Yeah. So what you're doing then
- 33:15Speaker 1: is creating what's called a pocket, and and creating this pocket.
- 33:20Speaker 1: So you've got the you've got the dermal elevator. Now
- 33:22Speaker 1: it's it's pressed like you separated the skin from the
- 33:25Speaker 1: top of your head along all of these incisions. You're
- 33:28Speaker 1: probably doing it one at a time, I would guess,
- 33:30Speaker 1: because you don't want these incisions hanging out waiting for
- 33:32Speaker 1: you to be done with the first. But you um,
- 33:36Speaker 1: you slide the dermal elevator under finally, until it's under
- 33:39Speaker 1: the spot where you've marked off where the implant is
- 33:42Speaker 1: going to come out, and then you two you take
- 33:45Speaker 1: another maybe either the scalpel again or dermal punch, and
- 33:49Speaker 1: you make a little hole. And then now you have
- 33:52Speaker 1: that pocket, and then you have a hole, and you
- 33:53Speaker 1: take the implant, which again is consists of an anchor
- 33:56Speaker 1: with the post coming out of it, and you put
- 33:58Speaker 1: it into the incision, move it through the pocket that
- 34:01Speaker 1: you've created with the dermal elevator until and then just
- 34:04Speaker 1: kind of move it along your skull pops right out
- 34:06Speaker 1: of that hole until it pops out of the hole.
- 34:08Speaker 1: And the whole reason for this this specific procedure is
- 34:12Speaker 1: because you want the hole that the implants coming out
- 34:15Speaker 1: of to be smaller than the anchor of the implant,
- 34:18Speaker 1: which is why you make that incision, so you can
- 34:21Speaker 1: move the implant in and it won't just protrude through
- 34:23Speaker 1: the hole that you've made for the implant to come
- 34:25Speaker 1: out of. You do this, in your case eight times
- 34:30Speaker 1: after that, after what I just said, in the implants
- 34:32Speaker 1: in an imposition, then you suture, and then I guess
- 34:34Speaker 1: you do it seven more times. I can't imagine sitting
- 34:38Speaker 1: through one let alone. Eight Yeah, I mean it's not
- 34:42Speaker 1: my bag. Seems painful. I got my ear pierce when
- 34:45Speaker 1: I was in high school, and that that hurt bad enough.
- 34:47Speaker 1: I used to self pierce my own ears. Well, you know,
- 34:50Speaker 1: the funny story is, I got my ear pierce on
- 34:53Speaker 1: spring break senior year with all my buds, like the
- 34:57Speaker 1: dumbest suburban white boy thing to do, like George Michael,
- 35:01Speaker 1: me up right here basically, and they're all standing around
- 35:04Speaker 1: going jitterbug. So, yeah, I got that done. I actually
- 35:09Speaker 1: felt that was part of the story for a second.
- 35:11Speaker 1: Sold it that. Well. We got home and my mom
- 35:13Speaker 1: got really upset and cried, so I took it out.
- 35:17Speaker 1: She cried it right out of your ear, she did,
- 35:19Speaker 1: and then she felt bad and my mom repierced my ear.
- 35:22Speaker 1: Oh wow, how about that? Why did she feel bad?
- 35:25Speaker 1: She was successful? Uh? And what crying it out of
- 35:28Speaker 1: my ear? I think, you know, because I was one
- 35:32Speaker 1: of like eight guys and I was the only guy
- 35:34Speaker 1: who had it cried out of their ear. And I
- 35:36Speaker 1: think she just you know, came around. It was that
- 35:38Speaker 1: initial that's a great shock. That's great shock, and all
- 35:41Speaker 1: the normy came to love it. Yeah. So one other thing,
- 35:45Speaker 1: So we're talking about how it's not our bag, and
- 35:48Speaker 1: that like just having your ear pierce was painful. One
- 35:51Speaker 1: of the things I saw in an explanation why people
- 35:53Speaker 1: do this is for the pain. Some people get off
- 35:56Speaker 1: on the pain. Yeah, I figured that, but also some people,
- 35:59Speaker 1: um why to kind of push their comfort zone of
- 36:03Speaker 1: their pain tolerance. They're not necessarily getting off on it,
- 36:07Speaker 1: but they feel like they're increasing their endurance, their grit,
- 36:12Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. They're gaining something right
- 36:14Speaker 1: there there. Yeah, possibly a spiritual experience from it that
- 36:18Speaker 1: it's not just like you know, there are people out
- 36:21Speaker 1: there who don't just necessarily think like you and me.
- 36:23Speaker 1: It's like, let's avoid pain at all costs. Some people
- 36:25Speaker 1: run into that stuff head first, forehead first, and say,
- 36:30Speaker 1: cut some holes in this man. Yeah, so that's cool. Yeah,
- 36:34Speaker 1: I mean that. And that's basically the long and short
- 36:36Speaker 1: of how you do that. You've got this post sticking out,
- 36:38Speaker 1: then it's sutred up. Um. However, here's what I was
- 36:43Speaker 1: about to say. Here's what they don't tell you. I'm
- 36:44Speaker 1: sure they do tell you. This is the success rate
- 36:47Speaker 1: for transdermal implants is super low. It's it like, what
- 36:51Speaker 1: is so I've seen yes, is what I saw too. Well,
- 36:57Speaker 1: you know what, that's a great place to break. But
- 37:00Speaker 1: is that's the first downside and we'll talk about more
- 37:02Speaker 1: of those when we come back, and things like chop
- 37:09Speaker 1: chop stop. So Chuck, you said the success rate is
- 37:38Speaker 1: what does that mean? Well, that means that of the
- 37:41Speaker 1: time everything is great, you don't get a skull infection,
- 37:45Speaker 1: and of the time a number of things can happen.
- 37:49Speaker 1: Infection is obviously one of the biggest risks m because
- 37:53Speaker 1: you're working with people who you know, may have things
- 37:56Speaker 1: fully sterilized or may not. I'm sure they take it
- 37:59Speaker 1: really seriously now, And I'm not saying it's all like
- 38:02Speaker 1: in someone's basement and they like fish up to a
- 38:04Speaker 1: lot of a scalpl out of their pocket. I'm sure
- 38:06Speaker 1: they take it really seriously now. But infection in hospitals
- 38:10Speaker 1: is something that's a problem, so right, it's going to
- 38:13Speaker 1: be a problem here. It's yeah, it's not even necessarily
- 38:16Speaker 1: that the tools or the implant are infected, but you
- 38:19Speaker 1: have just um broken open the envelope of your body
- 38:24Speaker 1: and now there's a direct pipeline into one of the
- 38:28Speaker 1: most vulnerable parts of your body, your skull and your
- 38:30Speaker 1: brain um from the outside environment just come on in bugs.
- 38:35Speaker 1: And if you've done that eight times in your head,
- 38:38Speaker 1: and technically you have sixteen holes in your head now,
- 38:41Speaker 1: eight for the implant and eight incisions, sixteen opportunities exactly.
- 38:45Speaker 1: And so even if you keep the thing clean and
- 38:48Speaker 1: really keep up with it while it's scarifying and healing,
- 38:51Speaker 1: it's still you have an open area for the outside
- 38:55Speaker 1: environment to come into your into your brain. And that
- 38:58Speaker 1: is one of the one of the frequent infections that
- 39:00Speaker 1: happens as a skull infection. You might have a skin infection,
- 39:03Speaker 1: it might go away, but it might have just migrated
- 39:06Speaker 1: to your skull and is eating into your skull, which
- 39:09Speaker 1: can become an abscess in your brain, which is a
- 39:11Speaker 1: real problem you can imagine um. And that is one
- 39:15Speaker 1: of the risks of transdermal implants. And it's such a
- 39:18Speaker 1: risk that people in the body mob community are like,
- 39:21Speaker 1: this is nuts. We really probably shouldn't be doing this.
- 39:24Speaker 1: Let's go back to subdermals. That's what I saw Shi
- 39:28Speaker 1: Finger on the pulse. Oh yeah, I'm super hip. I've
- 39:31Speaker 1: drink nothing but mountain dew blue all day. I'm trying
- 39:34Speaker 1: to picture you now being a like a cup reporter
- 39:38Speaker 1: podcaster who infiltrates the organization. I get talked into doing
- 39:43Speaker 1: a doughnut forehead thing because they don't believe you, because
- 39:46Speaker 1: you so you gotta prove it. I'm like, can I
- 39:49Speaker 1: just do some cocaine or something to prove it? You're like, well,
- 39:52Speaker 1: when I was younger, I gotta baby lodged under my
- 39:54Speaker 1: skin and a baby gun fight. How do you remember that?
- 39:57Speaker 1: Did that really happen to you? Oh? Yeah, okay, I
- 40:00Speaker 1: thought you remembered. No, I was taking that from Royal
- 40:02Speaker 1: Tannon bombs right here, so yeah, yeah, so there you go.
- 40:06Speaker 1: You've had a subdermal There was unwilling and involuntary. But
- 40:10Speaker 1: what happened? Did you just pop that thing right back out?
- 40:12Speaker 1: I didn't. A custodian at my school, dude, Oh man,
- 40:17Speaker 1: God bless him. Yeah that's amazing, God bless her. Oh really? Wow?
- 40:22Speaker 1: Oh man, she was the definition of grizzled. Yeah. She's like,
- 40:26Speaker 1: I can help you with that, whipped out her pocket
- 40:29Speaker 1: knife and just went to town. Man. The custodian at
- 40:32Speaker 1: my elementary school. These people are like teachers, like you
- 40:35Speaker 1: grow up with them. This is my high school. Yeah,
- 40:37Speaker 1: we had the same guy for seven years, Roger, and
- 40:41Speaker 1: he was amazing. He was he was like six three,
- 40:43Speaker 1: he was tall and lanky, and he had this big
- 40:46Speaker 1: long Cadillac with a front license so seventies front license
- 40:51Speaker 1: plate that said Maha Raja and air rushed and he
- 40:55Speaker 1: was so cool because my dad was principal. So he
- 40:57Speaker 1: hired Roger and Alfred, the two guys who like work there,
- 41:01Speaker 1: and they were there the whole time, Like I was
- 41:02Speaker 1: buddies with those Could you not hire? Roger shows up
- 41:06Speaker 1: with that that they were good guys? All right? So, um,
- 41:11Speaker 1: I feel like a scum wad for not remembering my
- 41:13Speaker 1: lady's name. You don't, well, I mean, I think the
- 41:16Speaker 1: fact that my dad was the principle, I got to
- 41:19Speaker 1: know a lot of the staff more than a normal
- 41:20Speaker 1: kid might. It's true because I was there in summers
- 41:23Speaker 1: and hanging out and stuff. They helped you with homework. Yeah, so, uh,
- 41:27Speaker 1: where were we we're talking about and fil trading? Oh okay,
- 41:32Speaker 1: here's some of the other things that can happen. Happen
- 41:34Speaker 1: aside from infection obviously rejection. Anytime you're introducing a foreign
- 41:39Speaker 1: object to the body, it really doesn't want it there.
- 41:43Speaker 1: So it strives to reject it, so when it does
- 41:46Speaker 1: work out, it's sort of not luck. But you know,
- 41:49Speaker 1: it's your body failing to do what it wants to do,
- 41:52Speaker 1: which is get rid of that thing. Right. Uh and
- 41:55Speaker 1: can also move great, So I guess if it doesn't
- 42:00Speaker 1: that tissue doesn't grow. I'm curious. I guess the suture
- 42:03Speaker 1: is supposed to hold it in place enough while the
- 42:05Speaker 1: tissue grows. Uh. No, that I mean the I think
- 42:10Speaker 1: you're not supposed to touch it for a while while
- 42:12Speaker 1: while the scar tissue is growing. But I don't know
- 42:15Speaker 1: that the suture has anything to do with it. The suture,
- 42:18Speaker 1: I thought it was just from the incision site, which
- 42:20Speaker 1: is an inch away. Oh, I thought they sutured around.
- 42:23Speaker 1: I don't think so. Really, they just punch it through. Yeah,
- 42:26Speaker 1: And I think the whole is small enough that it's
- 42:29Speaker 1: not really going to move as long as you don't
- 42:31Speaker 1: mess with it while it's scarring. So it's like the
- 42:34Speaker 1: little snaps on a trucker's cap kind of um. Interesting.
- 42:38Speaker 1: One of the one of the other things that can
- 42:40Speaker 1: happen too is if um some people don't use dermal elevators.
- 42:43Speaker 1: Some people use butter knives, instead, which as I saw
- 42:46Speaker 1: there was another Wired article from two dozen six. I saw, yeah,
- 42:51Speaker 1: Steve Hayworth um was saying, that's like trying to thread
- 42:54Speaker 1: a needle with a Cadillac, I guess a Maharajer Cadillac,
- 42:58Speaker 1: and that you just don't want to use a butter knife.
- 43:02Speaker 1: And if somebody's using a butter knife for this, just stop,
- 43:05Speaker 1: be like stop stop, I'm gonna go find somebody else.
- 43:08Speaker 1: But um, even if you use a transdermal or a
- 43:12Speaker 1: dermal elevator, you can go too deep and pull too
- 43:16Speaker 1: much skin away and started to mess with tendons and
- 43:18Speaker 1: nerves and all sorts of stuff you don't you don't
- 43:21Speaker 1: want to mess with, and that can that can cause
- 43:22Speaker 1: a lot of problems to I have. As you can see,
- 43:25Speaker 1: I sliced my thumb open last week and then the
- 43:27Speaker 1: tip of it is still completely numb. Cutting a bagel
- 43:30Speaker 1: with a serrated knife and it's completely numb. Yeah you know, Um,
- 43:35Speaker 1: I didn't want to take away from your glory, but
- 43:38Speaker 1: I cut a significant portion of my finger off right here,
- 43:42Speaker 1: like so see all this up to the nail um
- 43:48Speaker 1: just off and uh it took a while for the
- 43:53Speaker 1: for the feeling to come back a very long time.
- 43:55Speaker 1: Like I was like, I don't think I'm ever gonna
- 43:57Speaker 1: get feeling back. And I did. It comes back. It
- 43:59Speaker 1: just takes a little off with the nerves. But isn't
- 44:01Speaker 1: that spectacular that my finger is intact again now it
- 44:04Speaker 1: is like we can regrow fingertips. So I guess what
- 44:08Speaker 1: I'm trying to say is keep the faith, buddy. Well,
- 44:10Speaker 1: I got another story. Since we're on this, all right,
- 44:12Speaker 1: Well then I'll come up with my own again to uh.
- 44:16Speaker 1: And this was two and a half months ago. I
- 44:19Speaker 1: kicked my bed frame my shin and Emily heard the
- 44:24Speaker 1: sound and I hit the deck, and you know, I
- 44:27Speaker 1: tend to overreact. And she was kind of like, you know,
- 44:30Speaker 1: all right, like this is worse than when I got
- 44:32Speaker 1: my ear piers I was. I told her. I was like,
- 44:34Speaker 1: something happened. This was not a normal shin kick, And um,
- 44:39Speaker 1: there was a lump and if you touched it, it
- 44:43Speaker 1: was clearly some kind of exposed nerve like hayine would
- 44:46Speaker 1: shoot all the way through my leg for like two months.
- 44:49Speaker 1: And now the left top of my calf is still
- 44:52Speaker 1: numb two and a half months later, and like a
- 44:54Speaker 1: large like seven inches worth of my calf. Is it
- 44:57Speaker 1: one of those things where it's probably best that it's numb,
- 44:59Speaker 1: like you be in a lot of pain if I want. Well,
- 45:01Speaker 1: I mean, it's basically healed now, but um, that lump
- 45:05Speaker 1: in the nerve damage was now the lump is just
- 45:09Speaker 1: now gone. But it was pain like I've never literally
- 45:13Speaker 1: never felt before. It's crazy. It was awful. Oh you
- 45:17Speaker 1: didn't like it, No, I didn't. So this is not
- 45:20Speaker 1: my my thing. I understand. I'm not down with this,
- 45:22Speaker 1: but the whole thing is leading me into a suggestion
- 45:25Speaker 1: that we tackle nerves and nerve damage. I've been on
- 45:30Speaker 1: pain itself, but it's such a big topic. We haven't
- 45:32Speaker 1: had time to tackle it right, But we will. Okay,
- 45:36Speaker 1: are we done with this? We're probably not done yet.
- 45:39Speaker 1: Oh we were going to talk about microdermals before we leave. Yeah,
- 45:43Speaker 1: so those are way safer because the idea is that
- 45:47Speaker 1: it can be done with like a piercing gun type machine. Yeah.
- 45:52Speaker 1: So it's this device. It's the same thing. It looks
- 45:54Speaker 1: like there's a piece of jewelry or some adornment growing
- 45:57Speaker 1: out of your skin, but it's much much smaller than
- 46:00Speaker 1: what a transdermal anchor and post can handle much smaller
- 46:06Speaker 1: um and so you basically just kind of make a hole,
- 46:09Speaker 1: uh and dig the skin away just a little bit
- 46:12Speaker 1: just to create just enough of a pocket to put
- 46:15Speaker 1: basically a mini transdermal post an anchor in there. But
- 46:20Speaker 1: it's so small that you can just kind of move
- 46:22Speaker 1: the skin over and in the hole and pop it
- 46:25Speaker 1: in there, and then the skin closes back over it,
- 46:27Speaker 1: and now you have a little post and you can
- 46:29Speaker 1: screw a little you know, stud or diamond or whatever,
- 46:33Speaker 1: and it just looks like if you've ever seen somebody
- 46:35Speaker 1: with um, a stud on their cheek and it looks
- 46:39Speaker 1: like a jewel mole or something like that, that's a microdermal.
- 46:43Speaker 1: They actually have a hole in their face, not going
- 46:45Speaker 1: all the way through um that that they just there's
- 46:49Speaker 1: a post kind of in there. They're apparently easier to
- 46:51Speaker 1: get out too, which is a big problem with transdermal
- 46:55Speaker 1: is that once they're in and it's scars over, you've
- 46:58Speaker 1: got a real problem if you want them out. They're
- 47:00Speaker 1: hard to to remove. Sometimes surgery is involved. And then
- 47:04Speaker 1: I saw even though they were called permanent, that eventually
- 47:06Speaker 1: they all kind of need to come out at some point.
- 47:09Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that's where what what the science
- 47:12Speaker 1: is behind that? When you get an office job, that's
- 47:16Speaker 1: usually the science behind that. Yeah, I know. The last
- 47:19Speaker 1: thing I wanted to do was read over some of
- 47:21Speaker 1: these adult piercings. Yes, so have you? How many of
- 47:25Speaker 1: these did you look up? Uh? Most of them? I
- 47:28Speaker 1: could not resist anal piercing. Yeah, so two things, Google
- 47:32Speaker 1: image beware. Yeah, that's a I think that's fair. That's
- 47:36Speaker 1: a good c o A. And also, if you're kid,
- 47:39Speaker 1: if your mom or dad prepared to see what a
- 47:42Speaker 1: google anal piercing looks like, or just you know, you
- 47:45Speaker 1: might not want to hear any of these things. But
- 47:47Speaker 1: for or if you're playing this for your class for
- 47:49Speaker 1: some reason, right teacher, this might be a good time
- 47:52Speaker 1: to stop. So for males, it's lists the following ample langs.
- 47:57Speaker 1: Do you want to describe any of these? Or just that?
- 48:00Speaker 1: How does it? How does it spelled? Because I didn't
- 48:02Speaker 1: look up all of them A MP A, double L
- 48:04Speaker 1: A n G. That one I didn't see is that
- 48:06Speaker 1: the glands piercing. I'm not sure. I only looked up
- 48:10Speaker 1: about half of these. There's another one that begins with
- 48:11Speaker 1: an A. That's a glands piercing, the apa draw yas
- 48:15Speaker 1: I think, so, yeah, where it's a there's a a
- 48:18Speaker 1: piercing with two studs, a stud on either side. Okay,
- 48:22Speaker 1: that goes right through the head of the penis. Again
- 48:26Speaker 1: for sexual enhancement. All these are fixed sexual enhancement right,
- 48:29Speaker 1: well almost all the time. Sometimes it's for you know, aesthetics.
- 48:32Speaker 1: But um let me. There's something called a deep p a,
- 48:37Speaker 1: something called a dolphin, something called a didos foreskin piercing, boring, uh,
- 48:44Speaker 1: something called a guiches. Have you seen that? No, I
- 48:47Speaker 1: gotta see that one. Yeah, you check that out. I
- 48:49Speaker 1: don't know how to describe it without losing our show.
- 48:52Speaker 1: So how does this spell? G U I c h
- 48:55Speaker 1: E S pubics prince's wand a reverse sp a and
- 49:01Speaker 1: then the ever popular scroll the ladder. What is that one?
- 49:06Speaker 1: Just look it up? Uh? And these are the adult
- 49:09Speaker 1: piercings listed for females anal of course, men and women. Christina,
- 49:17Speaker 1: the old clatoris piercing, the forchette, the horizontal hood, the hymen,
- 49:25Speaker 1: inner labia, Isabella nipples, boring outer labia, Princess Albertina, the
- 49:36Speaker 1: triangle in the vertical hood. There's a. Yeah, there's a
- 49:39Speaker 1: lot of things to be pierced on a vagina. Apparently
- 49:42Speaker 1: there are, um and the you're right, we really probably
- 49:46Speaker 1: can't describe the guiches. Yeah, it's it's a it's just
- 49:51Speaker 1: it's sort of like no man's land. Yeah. Yes, that's
- 49:55Speaker 1: a really great way to put it. I think you
- 49:56Speaker 1: just saved the days. Uh. Well, if you we want
- 50:00Speaker 1: to know more about body modification, there's an actual there's
- 50:03Speaker 1: an article on how stuff works. You can check out.
- 50:06Speaker 1: It's a great place to start. Maybe it's your bag.
- 50:08Speaker 1: You'll find out. Um and since I said maybe it's
- 50:11Speaker 1: your bag, it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is
- 50:16Speaker 1: about when I was talking about that story about the
- 50:18Speaker 1: googling the two words. Oh yeah, that didn't match up
- 50:21Speaker 1: or whatever. Chuck mentioned he had a friend who would
- 50:24Speaker 1: google to random words to get as a few results
- 50:26Speaker 1: as possible. I got really excited. This practice is called
- 50:29Speaker 1: google sculpting, and it was used in a subversive poetry
- 50:33Speaker 1: movement called flour Have you ever heard of this? This
- 50:37Speaker 1: guy wrote, Okay, well this is different. I wrote my
- 50:42Speaker 1: senior year English paper on this. In high school. Flour
- 50:45Speaker 1: fists would use google sculpting to create the worst poems
- 50:48Speaker 1: they could muster using Uh, we could muster using lines
- 50:53Speaker 1: from the few results they would get. It started as
- 50:55Speaker 1: a way to expose scam publications that admitted every entry,
- 50:59Speaker 1: collected a submission fee, and convinced the poets to purchase
- 51:02Speaker 1: the compendium. But flarf was so fun it quickly gained
- 51:05Speaker 1: a life of its own. This is from Chris da
- 51:08Speaker 1: Silva and uh, Philadelphia, and he he sent his paper
- 51:12Speaker 1: along and I read it and uh, just as so
- 51:15Speaker 1: everyone gets this, I'm gonna read out an example of
- 51:18Speaker 1: a flourf This was by kay Salim Mohammed and his
- 51:22Speaker 1: poem is called gold Mine. I type slobbering anus into
- 51:28Speaker 1: Google because I'm one big, fat, lazy exterminator nut. Some
- 51:34Speaker 1: people think I'm a gluttonous, poor sign fury man killing
- 51:38Speaker 1: gold mine made of sweet gold beautiful. And he said
- 51:42Speaker 1: this poem references the process in creating flarf in the
- 51:45Speaker 1: first line. So he explains how he wrote the poem
- 51:48Speaker 1: itself by compiling the search results from googling the phrase
- 51:52Speaker 1: slabbing anus. Very nice. That is from Chris Silva from Philly.
- 51:57Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Chris, that was great. Who goal sculpting Google?
- 52:02Speaker 1: Flour uh, goaches, guaches, gleiches uh. If you want to
- 52:10Speaker 1: get in touch of this, like Christa Silva from Philly did,
- 52:13Speaker 1: you can go onto stuff you Should Know dot com
- 52:15Speaker 1: and there you will find all of our social links
- 52:18Speaker 1: and if you want, you could also send us an email,
- 52:20Speaker 1: wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, pierce it
- 52:22Speaker 1: somewhere and send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart
- 52:25Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
- 52:31Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for
- 52:34Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
- 52:37Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.