From Dumbo to Cinderella

As they say, “Kids can be so cruel”.

I met Maee a while back when she and her boyfriend Russ Foxx (who I’ve known practically since he was knee-high to a grasshopper) came by to host some suspensions at my studio, and I can assure you that she is very beautiful and doesn’t need to change anything. But what I think or what Russ thinks or what you think doesn’t erase the damage that was done to her psyche as a child — something I’m sure all of us can relate to in our own way, unfortunately. Ever since a young age she was teased about having big ears, and being called “Dumbo” throughout childhood made a deeply negative impact on her confidence as an adult. She remembers ears being hit by a ruler, being called nasty names, and even being dragged down a hallway by them in highschool.

Maee approached many cosmetic surgeons trying to find someone who would help her, but all they could offer her was “otoplasty”, a procedure in which the ears are folded back toward the head, making them stick out less. This wasn’t what she wanted though — Maee literally wanted smaller ears, perhaps by cutting part of the cartilage out and restructuring the ear in some way. She wasn’t bothered by how much they stuck out — it was their physical size that upset her. But no plastic surgeon was willing to tackle the job.

Even highly experienced cosmetic surgeons are very averse to creating new procedures, unlike practitioners in the body modification industry, who enjoy and excel at the evolution and outright creation of procedures to match the dreams of their clients, so it was serendipity that Maee and Russ fell in love. When Russ understood what Maee went through with her ears, he offered to modify the ear pointing procedure to meet her needs. The results couldn’t have gone better — her new ears look completely natural, but smaller. I was so happy when I read how she felt afterwards,

“He changed my life in a way I never thought could happen. I cried so hard after I got to see my new ears. I felt a sense of relief, I gained more confidence, and I felt as though all those hard years of my life had all faded away in just one single moment.”

maee-ear-job

In the photos above the inside pair are the “before” photos, and the outside pair are the “after” photos. Since it may not be obvious — and I think the fact that it’s not “obvious” is proof of just how well this was executed — I’ve made a little animation where you can see just how well this turned out. I’m pretty sure I’ve kept things quite accurately to scale. On the right you can see the size of the triangle of flesh that was removed.

maee-ear-animated

2011 BME Year End Awards

Woops! Looks like somebody forgot to hit “post” on the 2011 Year End Awards! At least we didn’t forget to send out the Gift Certificates though! If you’re on the list below, check your email because you were sent anywhere from $20 to $1000. That’s right! We’ve gone from t-shirts to cold hard cash (gift certificates are like cash, right?!) If you see yourself on this page and didn’t see your gift certificate email then drop me a line at [email protected] and I’ll send it to you again!

If you haven’t noticed, the new leader boards are up. They’re linked in the footer on BME.com and we’ve also gone back in time (up to 2001 anyway!) and added leader boards for every year! This is the first year that we’ve also got video contributions so that’s another new thing we’re doing.

If you look at the numbers you’re probably thinking, “woah, wasn’t the top contributor 45k images for 2009?” and you’d be right. We’ve been trying to figure out how to make it as easy as it used to be to submit images and we thought the best way would be to make it so that you could email your submissions like you did since the dawn of BME. Give us a couple more weeks to finish working out the kinks and you’ll be able to email your submissions to the site just like the good ole days! We’re also busy working on integration into other sites so you’ll be able to update all of your social sites from BME and vice versus! You’ll be able to manage everything you want from BME with the bonus that you can keep your BME only entries safe behind IAM’s walls while sending out your other posts! No more having to log in to 20 different sites just to get your FB/twitter/tumblr/linkedin/so many other sites, can’t possible name them all,  on!

Once again, I can’t thank you enough for contributing to BME. Check the leader boards to see where you ranked on collecting a cool cash prize! We’re going to start doing monthly gift certificate give aways to the top contributors in the photo and video galleries once the email submission tool is back online and I think we’ll see the submission numbers back to where they used to be. The one bonus is that our Year End Awards got to see some new faces because they didn’t have to upload tens of thousands of photos just to have a shot! While that was fun for one year, lets get back to submitting tens of thousands of photos, videos and stories!

Top 10 Image Contributors
1. 856 images
joeltron
Joeltron

2. 469 images
naoise-ryan-israel
Naoise-Ryan Israel
3. 454 images
the_sinner_team
The Sinner Team
4. 451 images
8bga-kipodd
8bga-kipodd
5. 399 images
8ckf-olegek97
8ckf-olegek97
6. 341 images
supa2
Supa
7. 292 images
roobot
Self Sacrifice
8. 248 images
nopic1
skindependent
9. 243 images
urbansoul
UrbanSoul
10. 156 images
nopic1
8phv-l8onha

Top 10 Video Contributors

1. 132 videos
nopic1
9bdz_kokomi3k
2. 56 videos
8bfh-udreisoern
8bfh-udreisoern
3. 50 videos
swen2
swen2
4. 33 videos
nopic1
9vlm-pdebsk
5. 26 videos
nopic1
9bgc-edziu1902
6. 25 videos
xzotikmodz
xzotikmodz
7. 24 videos
nopic1
uwe
8. 22 videos
smbite57
smbite57
9. 20 videos
jonjuan60
jonjuan60
9. 20 videos
8ckf-olegek971
8ckf-olegek97
9. 20 videos
wandalaput
wandalaput
10. 17 videos
nopic1
elevateur

Top 3 Story Contributors

1. 3 stories
katsaw
KatSaw
1. 3 stories
annalese
annalese
1. 3 stories
dollparts7
DollParts7

A big SHOUT OUT!!! goes out to the following people for being generally awesome and more specific things they’ve done to help BME keep ticking!

lextalonis
Sean Phillips

Sean helps out whenever we need him and he’s got a few minutes to spare. Sean being around makes me feel old since he’s been a member of BME since the dawn of time!

mcshady
Katie McShady

Katie was awesome and helped out with BMEshop while I got back into the swing of things after the cross country move from LA to VA. If you got orders in 2011, Katie and her beautiful hair probably graced your goods with her presence! 🙂

midian2000
Midian2000

Midian has also been around for over a DECADE and he’s continued to throw the SoCal BME BBQ come hell or high water! If you’re looking for a BME BBQ on the West Coast to meet fellow BME members, his BBQ is the place to be!

nano
Nano

Nano also touched every single one of your BMEshop orders for most of 2011, that is until he got himself denied entry! That’s what you get for being an international playboy! We love Nano and miss him dearly!

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

A huge “thank you” goes out to past and present editorial contributors to BME. Everyone has continued to grow with their own projects and while some former contributors to BME have been swamped with their own projects, it wouldn’t be right not to thank them for everything they’ve done in the past and what they continue to do not only for BME but for the community at large! Without them, BME wouldn’t have grown in the way it has over the past 18 years!

Allen Falkner
Roundtable, Author

Ferg
Author

Russ Foxx
Ask.BME staff

Ron Garza
Roundtable, Author

Warren Hiller
Ask.BME staff

Derek Lowe
Ask.BME, Roundtable

John Joyce
Roundtable member

Paul King
Author

Lexci Million
Ask.BME staff

Ryan Ouellette
Ask.BME, Roundtable

Sean Philips
Ask.BME staff, Modblog

Shawn Porter
Ask.BME, Author

Efix Roy
Ask.BME staff

Joy Rumore
Roundtable

Lori St. Leone
Ask.BME staff

Steve Truitt
Roundtable member

Tiff Badhairdo
Ask.BME staff

Brian Decker
Roundtable member

Stephen DeToma
Roundtable member

BME Staff

BME staff.. What can I say about the people listed below? You know and love (well most of them!) dearly because some of them (Mike and Jen!) have been around BME for almost as long as it’s been online! There is a newcomer in the group and his name is Diego! He’s our new programmer and he’s been fixing bugs, adding new features and generally kicking ass since he hit the ground running!

For those of you who didn’t notice, Mike moved from the snowy horridness of the New England area to sunny Hawaii and we are all so jealous it makes us want to do very bad things to him.. Very bad! We let it slide though because when the servers hit the floor, Mike is the first one there to pick them up and put them back where they belong! Without Mike, BME would have had some serious outages over the years!

If you’ve had any kind of issue with your account, you’ve talked to Jen. She was possibly grumpy and short (she can’t help being 4′ 11″!) but she probably solved your issue and got you back on the site! Jen has been solving member issues since 2004! She took over 10 years ago after I had my daughter and couldn’t keep up with member support while juggling everything else BME and a beautiful baby girl!

I’m not sure that Rob needs any kind of introduction. He sorts through the moderation queue and pulls out submissions to showcase on modblog. He takes your beatings when “nothing new and ground breaking” has been posted because he hasn’t been out on the street inventing body modifications because he’s too busy moderating content and posting links to body modification news around the web. We also like him because of his thick skin!

robw
Rob
ModBlog Beard Guy
diego
Diego
Sys-Admin Guy
ct
CT
Tropical Sys-Admin Guy
jen
Jen
Girl-Friday
rachel
Rachel
HBIC

I know I’ve been MIA from Modblog and IAM for most of 2011 but that’s because I’ve been busy behind the scenes. Between going back to being a full time Mom, running BMEshop single handed and dealing with non-stop medical issues, I haven’t had the time that I’d like to post online in general. I’m hoping that we’re able to wrap up fixing all of the issues with rebuilding the site from the ground up and that I can move on to building fun features and new applications for BME. I have a TON of stuff launching in the next few months and I’m hoping that lightens the load on all of us here at BME. I know that people often give credit to the staff of BME for it being what it is but it truly is a community effort. BME wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the collective efforts of millions of body modification enthusiasts world wide. Without you, there wouldn’t be BME. I hope to see you on the Year End Awards next year!

2009 BME Year End Awards

Happy New Year!! Let’s start this off by giving away free stuff!

It must have been the year I turned 21 that each day started by passing more and more quickly. I remember being 12 thinking I”d never be 16, then 18, then 21 and now I’m 4 months away from being 30. It means another year of growing BME has come and gone. It seems like the 2008 Awards were posted just a few days ago but it’s been a year. A whole year. We’ve seen so many ups and downs. This year marks the largest contribution by one person over the course of a year, which is also the largest contribution by one person during a year in the history of BME. There are also a couple faces here from last year that we couldn’t kick off the leader boards if we tried. Perk900, I’m talking to you, let’s see you get first place next year!! With this being the last day of 2009, I figured I’d kick it off right and present the 2009 Year End Contributor Awards!

You’ll also note that if you check the leader boards you’ll see different people listed in the top ten for image contributions than are listed below. Our 2nd and 3rd place winner is actually the same person so they’ve been combined and Jen gets disqualified and doesn’t get to win a contributor staff shirt because she already gets one for being staff! That moves everybody up one or two spots and that’s how we’ve come up with the list below.

If you are on the list, you’ll be contacted by me personally. If you don’t hear from me, check your spam or please email me with your address and shirt size to [email protected]. We will be sending out a very special surprise to the top contributor in each section!

I’m throwing in some BME trivia for you all to enjoy as well:

BME Facts:
Photos: 4,493,138
Experiences: 46,980
Videos: 7,942 (plus more that have been posted on Modblog!)
Posts on Modblog: 8,061
Comments on Modblog alone: 177,491
Average Daily Modblog readers; 112,387
Tattoo & Piercing Shops listed on 411.BME: 10,680 (not including the shops that are pending verification
Countries with users on BME: 70
Ask.BME answers: 1,083 (not including the previous version of the QOD)
Ask.BME comments: 2,870

There are tons of other things I haven’t included but I just wanted to show what we have all built together and thank you all again for contributing to BME and making the site what it is today.

TOP 10 IMAGE CONTRIBUTORS

1. 45,802 images

number1

Kitano Karyuudo

See the rest of this year’s top contributors after the break!


2. 15,488 images
number2
kokomi.3k
3. 2,717 images

Perk900
4. 1.014 images

Alienboy
5. 872 images
number6
UREA
6. 626 images
image71
China Tattoo Portfolio
7. 577images

Allen Falkner
8. 560 images
number9
LilFunky1
9. 559 images
number10
JOSEPH DOWNUNDER
10. 473 images
number10image
Thou_Art

TOP 9 EXPERIENCE CONTRIBUTORS


1
. 7 experiences

Devro


2. 7 experiences
expnumber2
Larry666

3. 6 experiences (tie)

Bluestar

3. 6 experiences (tie)
expnumber3missbrutal
MissBrutal
4. 5 experiences (tie)
exp4hoboqueenhoboqueen

4. 5 experiences (tie)
exp4scrletroseScarlettRose
4. 5 experiences (tie)
exp4dear29

dear29

4. 5 experiences (tie)
exp4sevendaze
sevendaze

4. 5 experiences (tie)
exp4ycul

Ycul







Experience Reviewers:

I wanted to add in a special thank you to our reviewing volunteers who vote on experiences so they can be added to the site. Without them, Jen and I would be reading a lot of experiences and going cross eyed. Experience reviewers earn credits towards limited edition tshirts through out the year. The 25 linked are logged by experience reviews for all time, not broken down by year which is why they’re generally not included in the Year End Awards but I wanted to give them some extra recognition and say thank you again for the reviewing that you do. I appreciate it a lot.

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

Tiff Badhairdo
Ask.BME staff

Meg Barber
Roundtable member,
BMEshop

Brian Decker
Roundtable member

Stephen DeToma
Roundtable member

Allen Falkner
Roundtable, Author

Ferg
Author

Russ Foxx
Ask.BME staff

Ron Garza
Roundtable, Author

Warren Hiller
Ask.BME staff

Derek Lowe
Ask.BME, Roundtable

John Joyce
Roundtable member

Paul King
Author

Lexci Million
Ask.BME staff

Ryan Ouellette
Ask.BME, Roundtable

Sean Philips
Ask.BME staff, Modblog

Shawn Porter
Ask.BME, Author

Efix Roy
Ask.BME staff

Joy Rumore
Roundtable

Lori St. Leone
Ask.BME staff

Steve Truitt
Roundtable member

James Weber
APP Author

Since everyone works from home, I’m not able to give each and every one of them a huge hug and say thank you for all the help that they do behind the scenes in making BME such a great place, not to mention keeping it updated, the servers running properly and the members happy! If you can, drop them a line and say thanks! Without them, I’d probably go crazier than I already am!

BME STAFF



Phil Barbosa

Image processing, party
planning, mustache rides


Mike Brum

Server maintenance,
TOS banhammer


Jen Savage
Customer service,
loud noises


RETIRED BME STAFF



Jordan Ginsberg
Former Witty Guy who took amost two
years of beatdowns courtesy of
Modblog

RooRaaah Crumbs
BMEvideo


Tristan Henry-Wilson
Designer Extroidinarre, whom we
call upon from time to time!


Jonathon Marshall
Our thanks still go out to Jon who helps us
whenever we need him!


jasongrazer
Jason
Former Admin

shannon2
Shannon Larratt
BME’s founder and former EIC

I can’t thank everyone enough for continuing to support BME, not only the site itself but the community that it has fostered over the years. I look forward to a new year with new goals, obstacles and hopefully many many triumphs. The first one being the long overdue launch of the new Beta BME Galleries, then the rest of BME and finally the transition of IAM onto the new software. I’ll be able to start adding new features, aside from the ones already implemented in the new site, and BME can continue to grow while giving itself back to the community where it belongs. I can’t wait!

I also wanted to give a special thank you to the people who have contributed to BME’s Legal Defense Fund. To date we’ve raised $1,470.00, which certainly helps. As I’ve mentioned before any and cost recovered if we’re awarded attorney’s fees will be donated to BME’s Legal Defense Fund that I’ve started to help defend the body modification community at large.

And now what you’ve all been waiting for, this year’s award is the t-shirt below! I wanted to figure out how to make a shirt that said “I was a top contributor to BME and all I got was a bag of dicks!” but Alie K. came up with this great design! Check more of her work out at GoodTattoos.ca if you want to get tattooed by her or need someone to do design work. She’s come up with more than a few gems for BMEshop.

sausage-party-mockup-shirt

Rachel Larratt

* * *


BME News and Notes: Video Edition


Hey, so, first things first, this here is a band from scenic Canada, North America, called The Ending, who have just filmed the fancy video for their song “Freakshow” that you see above. Now, normally, we don’t give preferential promotional space to bands (other than Pearl Jam, who I will promote forever and so help me God you will like it), but what do you know, they’ve got people doing all sorts of fun sideshow stuff in the video! Also, it features BME super-hunks Orbax, Sweet Pepper Klopek and Russ Foxx! Go look at your friends, people.

Moving right along, how would you like to be on television? Specifically, MTV? Well, here’s some pertinent information!

MTV’s True Life is casting for an upcoming episode and seeks young people, 16-26, at odds with their parents over their relationship; mainly because of their significant other’s interest in tattoos or body modification.

You can email your situation to [email protected], and be sure to include your name, age, location, phone number, and recent photo of yourself.

If anyone who reads this is featured on the show, please do everything you can to infiltrate MTV and punch everyone on The Hills in the balls.

And finally, apparently Playboy is too fancy to allow embedding of their videos, but this here is some kinda folk song dedicated to the Denver Nuggets and their tattoos. The Nuggets, who advanced to the NBA’s Western Conference Finals last night, are pretty much, to a person, covered from elbow to asshole in tattoos. The song isn’t hilarious, but hey, sports + tattoos + acoustic guitar + Playboy = Welcome to ModBlog!

2008 BME Year-End Awards


Some may find it trite to say things like, “Without the readers, none of this would be possible,” but with BME it could not be more true — each and every year, the community sustains us. Without you, there would be nothing here, and we’re routinely awed by the amount and quality of submissions we receive. This year, we published thousands upon thousands of new photos and experiences, to say nothing of guest articles, Ask.BME contributions and roundtable participation, and that, friends, is incredible. And now, on with the awards!

 

TOP 10 IMAGE CONTRIBUTORS

1. 8,707 images

kokomi.3k

2. 5,834 images
Kitano Karyuudo
3. 2,930 images
Perk900
4. 1,476 images
Joao Caldara
5. 1,339 images
Alienboy
6. 1,027 images
Freakboy
7. 995 images
Inksation
8. 979 images
Allen Falkner
9. 929 images
Bena
10. 903 images
Holeybody

TOP 12 EXPERIENCE CONTRIBUTORS


1. 12 experiences
Bluestar

2. 10 experiences
Popecatapetal

3. 9 experiences
Deadly Pale

4. 8 experiences
PhoenixTX

5. 7 experiences (tie)
Devro

5. 7 experiences (tie)
Trannyboy

7. 5 experiences (tie)
Bondage-Kit

7. 5 experiences (tie)
Metal Faced Yazzy

7. 5 experiences (tie)
Dreadlocksmile

7. 5 experiences (tie)
Melissa Rose

7. 5 experiences (tie)
LotN

7. 5 experiences (tie)
Lucass

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

Tiff Badhairdo
Ask.BME staff
Meg Barber
Roundtable member
Brian Decker
Roundtable member
Stephen DeToma
Roundtable member
Allen Falkner
Roundtable, Author
Ferg
Author
Russ Foxx
Ask.BME staff
Ron Garza
Roundtable, Author
Warren Hiller
Ask.BME staff
Derek Lowe
Ask.BME, Roundtable
John Joyce
Roundtable member
Paul King
Author
Lexci Million
Ask.BME staff
Ryan Ouellette
Ask.BME, Roundtable
Sean Philips
Ask.BME staff
Shawn Porter
Ask.BME, Author
Efix Roy
Ask.BME staff
Joy Rumore
Roundtable
Lori St. Leone
Ask.BME staff
Steve Truitt
Roundtable member
James Weber
Author

BME STAFF


Phil Barbosa
Image processing, party
planning, mustache rides

Mike Brum
Server maintenance,
TOS banhammer

Jason Cartwright
Programmer, code-
monkey

RooRaaah Crumbs
BMEvideo guru, Mod-
Blogger, whimsy

Jordan Ginsberg
Managing editor, head
writer, dick jokes

Tristan Henry-Wilson
Graphics, T-shirt
design, lithe
Jen Savage
Customer service,
loud noises

Jonathon Marshall
Former programmer and
over-all tech genie

Rachel Larratt
Publisher, Editor-in-
Chief, BMEshop, HBIC

 

 

 

If you’re pictured above, BME will contact you privately. Thanks again, everyone, and we’re looking very forward to an even bigger and better 2009!

* * *

Please consider buying a membership to BME so we can continue bringing you articles like this one.



Spooky Scary


Is the Ouija Board not one of the weirdest toys ever made? Regardless of its origins, the current incarnation is ostensibly for children, but it exists only to scare the bejesus out of you, right? And not even in the harmless “scary story” way — these things have tortured a few generations of people now by making them think they are literally being haunted by damned demons and such. What I’m getting at is, this cutting is well done, but since the person who got it done is obviously going to hell, I think we need another board game-related scarification piece to balance things out. I’m going to suggest Scrabble.

(Cutting by Russ Foxx at The Fall in Vancouver, British Columbia.)

See more in Misc. Cuttings (Scarification)

Baby, It’s Cold Outside


This pleasant, summery photo from the shores of White Rock Beach in British Columbia comes from Russ Foxx, and is presented as a gift (or perhaps a taunt?) to all those who are in a climate that is currently being pummeled by winter’s dreaded hammerfists. Seems plenty warm in that photo, though. Must be nice.

See more in Modern Body Suspension (Suspension Teams and Bonus Galleries)

And now for something completely different..

I feel we need some “dessert” after the last post, something light and fruity perhaps?

I’m afraid some of the images above didn’t have credits, but I can say that the top-left-brunette-lad is Mostly Canadian, the top-right-blonde is Miss Duveaux (more), the septum-piercing-in-the-centre was done by Russ Foxx (more / iam), girl-with-frilly-red-knickers is Lessaa and the bottom-right-lad’s tattoos were done by Alan Gilb, Top Dog Tattooz, Cosham, England.

See more at, erm, BMEzine.com, obviously!