With regard to Ms. Romell's article for the Vancouver Sun:
At A Glance Author Kieran Contact [email protected] When N/A Above and beyond the indignities suffered by the misquoted and dubious portrayal of prominent body modification artists, and the reaction from the modification community, this article has also sharpened the teeth and claws of the anti-mod community, and lent their heretofore largely tacit prejudice strength. The consensus in the general public, from various fora, seems to be "Yeah, so what if it's biased hack journalism -- you egotistical, narcissistic, ungodly freaks deserve to be libelled."
In one breath, the anti-mod proponents say "Booooring, yawn, piercings are so last year", and then they proceed to spend paragraphs at length attacking the mod movement as "infantile, attention-seeking and foolish". I wonder if they even realize they're talking out of both sides of their mouths? Something can't both be "not worth talking about" and also worth attacking again and again and again.
What is it about tattoos and piercings that makes people so hostile? It obviously isn't "just a piece of metal", or "just some ink" to them. There must be more going on -- mods must represent something much more antagonistic to them -- but I doubt the mod community will ever have a clear explanation; one that doesn't involve religious criticism or outright mockery. Perhaps if we knew exactly why the general public finds mods so disgusting, so repellent, we could better educate them; for now, however, misinformation like Ms. Romell's article will continue to be the baseline that most people work from, unfortunately, which becomes a self-sustaining loop of biased press into prejudice into biased press.
The phrase "outer rebellion means inner surrender" kept being vanguarded as the mantra of the anti-mod movement, and unfortunately, like all good propaganda catchphrases, it has a grain of truth. Many people, particularly younger people, do express deep-seated inner turmoil through the mortification of the flesh, whether that be through piercing, tattoo or scarification -- both as a means of experiencing catharsis through pain and as a way of "wearing the pain on the outside".
This self-exploration is very common among teenagers, but not all of it (such as eating disorders and addiction) leaves marks. It is erroneous, however, to paint an entire group of people with a brush that applies to only a fraction of the population. Most tattoos are not prison or biker tattoos, and most body modification is NOT fueled by self-hate. Very few of the over age 20 modded people I've spoken with continue to alter themselves out of self-hate or exertion of control over their bodies. For the older set, it's mostly a form of time-keeping (becoming altered to mark the passage of events) or pure aesthetic decoration.
In the case of aesthetic decoration, why is a nose piercing considered somehow more "narcissistic" than bleaching one's hair? Or getting a boob job? Or getting the fat sucked out of our legs? If an article was written decrying plastic surgery as "only for sick fucks", there would be a huge Sturm und Drang; but because it's attacking an already feared and marginalized subculture, dishonest journalism is .. okay? Huh?
Piercings and tattoos can become a self-esteem boost in the same way that colouring your hair or acquiring your dream car can; they won't solve your problems and won't make you happy, but they can help you think about yourself in the light you want to, and live the life you want. NO physical thing -- be it clothes, piercings, tattoos, cars, houses -- can truly make you happy; however, everyone collects something, or desires objects in their environment that they feel good looking at/having. Why is it considered acceptable to save up for a holiday and not for a modification, when both will make you equally happy?
The argument has been made that "so what if she's attacking you, it's a trivial thing, piercings are completely unimportant". And those people are quite right -- what they're missing, however, is that it's the fact that a journalist was allowed to publish false and misleading information, and not the article's claims itself, that is getting everyone hot under the collar. It's what that article spews, and the public's general acceptance of the false stereotypes presented in that article, that we are up in arms about.
>From a logical standpoint, if the journalist in question got common, basic information wrong (such as the I Love Lucy episode), then she can't be trusted to get any of the other information right, yes? But nobody's pointing that out. The general public is eager to believe that the mod minority is just a bunch of "sick fucks", so they gloss over the journalist's obvious and proven ineptitude in order to gloat, "See? We were right all along".
You can't compare prejudice against the mod culture to racial prejudice in scope of time or volume, surely, but you can compare it in that the mod community is subject to stereotypes that make it dangerous for them to walk alone in certain areas and impossible to get certain jobs solely based on appearance -- in the same way that racism does. Spreading false information about a minority culture -- be it racial, body modification, sex, religion, gender preference, what have you -- is a dangerous precedent to set. By condoning (and encouraging) this kind of biased journalism against any special interest group, we are saying that we support media spin, regardless of whether we are part of that special interest group or not; and that is what we are angry about, not the childish scribblings of a hack writer. It's not just her that's pissing us off; it's the reactions of the people who, behind their hands, are giggling at the "freaks" getting "exactly what they deserve".